Li is the founder and largest shareholder of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, a maker of cars and related components. The Hangzhou-based company made the biggest acquisition of a foreign carmaker by a Chinese company when it bought Volvo for $1.5 billion in 2010. It had revenue of 406 billion yuan ($60.4 billion) in 2022.
The majority of Li's fortune is derived from his sole ownership in closely-held Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, a maker of cars and related components. A 10% stake is held through his son Li Xingxing, and it's credited to Li Shu Fu to reflect his status as founder. The Hangzhou-based company had revenue of 406 billion yuan ($60.4 billion) in 2022, according to the company's annual report.
The valuation of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group is based on its reported financial results and the price-to-earnings multiples of three publicly-traded peer companies: Geely Automobile, SAIC Motor and Guangzhou Automobile.
Li also owns about 2% in publicly traded Geely Automobile, according to the company's 2023 semi-annual report. His stake held through Zhejiang Geely Holding Group is excluded to avoid double counting.
The billionaire also directly owns 30% of the shares in publicly traded investment company Honbridge Holdings, according to its 2023 third-quarter report.
Lawrence Ang, spokesman for Geely Automobile Holdings, declined to comment on Li's net worth.
Li was born in June 1963 in Taizhou, Zhejiang province. At age 19, he used 100 yuan ($16) his father had given him to buy a camera and start a photography business taking photos of tourists. Later, he set up his own studio to sell handmade camera accessories. The billionaire graduated from Yanshan University with a master's degree in engineering. He founded Geely as a refrigerator parts company in 1986. Geely, which means "lucky" in Chinese, began producing motorcycles eight years later, after Li acquired a bankrupt state-owned manufacturer. Geely became China's first private carmaker in 1997, according to its website. The company's first model, the Haoqing SRV, rolled off its production line a year later. Geely expanded rapidly in the years that followed, selling more than 600,000 motorcycles and 150,000 cars by 2000. The company had its initial public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2005.
Li's profile rose significantly with Geely's purchase of Sweden-based Volvo Cars from Ford Motor Co. for $1.5 billion in 2010, after nearly two years of talks.