China's 'Henry Ford' woos Volvo with farm boy modesty
November 2, 2009
By Alison Leung and Fang Yan Shanghai
Li Shufu, the founder of China's Zhejiang Geely Holdings, has much in common with Henry Ford, from a childhood on a farm to a scrappy determination to build a car-making behemoth from nothing.
If talks between Geely and Ford Motor succeed, he may have another link with the great industrialist - ownership of Ford's Volvo unit.
Li's Geely, which means auspicious or lucky in Chinese, has captured the imagination of car buffs with its dark-horse bid for the well-known but money-losing Swedish brand being sold by Ford.
"Li is a man full of ideas," said ABN Amro Teda Fund Management analyst Chen Qiaoning.
"Some of those ideas have worked. But the Volvo deal could turn out to be a big disappointment even if it wins the bid, as cross-border auto deals have seldom led to happy marriages."
A mechanical engineer by training, Li disdained high-brow activities such as golf and lived in a modest apartment, said Geely Automobile executive director Lawrence Ang. Now one of China's richest men, Li's trajectory began modestly.
Like Henry Ford, Li's focus is on the mass market with models such as the Free Cruiser and Geely Kingkong, which sell for as little as 40 000 yuan (R46 000). In contrast, Volvo's XC 90 sells for up to $205 000 (R1.6 million) in China.
Li is now pressing forward with the Volvo bid with a modesty that would not have come easily to Henry Ford.
"Volvo is like a mysterious, beautiful woman," he told the Wall Street Journal in April. "We just look at her from far away, amazed. We don't dare get close to her. We're just a bunch of farm boys." - Reuters
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