Hong Kong-listed Fosun International has evolved from a homegrown success story to a leader in the world effort to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Luo Weiteng reports.

Once a poster child of the meteoric rise of the world’s second-largest economy and now a living embodiment of China’s battle against the coronavirus pandemic and to restart the country’s economy, Chinese conglomerate Fosun International stakes its past, present and future on its home market.

The Hong Kong-listed enterprise, with a business footprint in more than 40 countries and regions across six continents, bears the imprint of a nationwide “just do it” push, charting its own course to become one of China’s largest private business groups. It traces its origins to the story of young aspirants who ventured into the business world and plowed their earnings, talent and energy into the country’s unprecedented economic overhaul to build up something from nothing.

Fighting on the front line

As big as Fosun has become in a mere 28 years, the homegrown conglomerate has been at the front line of the coronavirus battlefield since the start of the Year of the Rat, underscoring China’s dogged determination to join the rest of the world in the fight to contain the virus.

China, which bankrolls a big effort in combating the coronavirus, has what it takes to be the early mover to step out of all the short-term pains and make a fresh start

Xu Xiaoliang, co-CEO and executive director of Fosun International

“It’s a race against time,” said Xu Xiaoliang, the group’s co-CEO and executive director, who still remembers vividly how the Shanghai-based company toiled round-the-clock to deploy emergency supplies such as protective masks, goggles, medical gloves, protective suits and ventilators through its global affiliates. 

After concluding an emergency meeting on New Year’s Eve, Jan 24, the company saw its first batch of supplies arrive shortly after midnight on Jan 28. Every part of the group’s global business empire then swung into action, launching themselves into a cross-border relay race to deliver the most urgently needed supplies to Wuhan — the Hubei provincial capital and one of the cities hardest hit by the outbreak that was plagued by an acute shortage of strategic supplies as local factories were shut for the holidays with inadequate time to crank up production.

Xu believes the pandemic presented a test of Fosun’s years-long overseas investments and operations. But without the foresight, a sense of crisis and the capability to mobilize, organize and deploy global resources, things couldn’t have been done at such a blistering pace.

Fosun quickly organized and established 24 anti-COVID-19 working committees covering 10 provinces and regions in China, as well as 14 overseas countries and regions, to ensure the normal operations of local member companies of Fosun, and this showed the swift response and concrete actions of the company, Xu said. 

As the most populous nation on earth takes the lead in keeping the lid on the pathogen and putting its economy back on track, Fosun is facing another uphill battle as the coronavirus continues its rampage across the world.

The conglomerate has lost no time in providing countries like Japan, Italy, South Korea, India, the United States and France with emergency supplies, capitalizing on China’s rapidly resuming and even stepped-up production capacity.

As the race to produce a coronavirus vaccine accelerated, Fosun Pharma — the enterprise’s Hong Kong- and Shanghai-listed pharmaceutical arm whose business covers the entire industry chain of the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry — has clinched a US$135 million partnership with German group BioNTech to develop a COVID-19 vaccine.

Fosun’s endeavors during the coronavirus crisis are fundamentally based on the company’s strong confidence in the resilience of the Chinese economy, Xu said.

China’s economy resistant

“Business data tell everything. Domestic consumption, one of the fundamental growth engines for China’s economy, shows no sign of losing steam, with a consumer-led recovery taking hold in the country,” he said. “This makes us believe that China, which bankrolls a big effort in combating the coronavirus, has what it takes to be the early mover to step out of all the short-term pain and make a fresh start.”

Xu said the occupancy rate at the group’s Atlantis Sanya luxury resort on the South China island province of Hainan hit 65 percent in late March compared with the same period last year, and is poised to set a new record for the upcoming “golden week” holidays from May 1.

Business at direct-sale stores of the group’s Yuyuan Tourist Mart has rebounded to 70 percent of the same period of last year. Meanwhile, sales at Bund Finance Center in Shanghai have returned to 80 percent of the same period last year, with certain business segments exceeding sales from a year ago.

From its humble roots, Fosun has taken a good hard road to the lofty goal of “marrying Chinese momentum with global resources”, being a well-connected local partner for foreign brands and technologies in line with the nation’s growth trajectory.

Connecting to the world

This makes the company well positioned to take a good, hard look at how China and the rest of world is closely connected, especially when today’s rhetoric and mentality worldwide may usher in a new era of globalization and trade relationship, Xu said.

He believes the global health crisis will essentially change a lot of things, reinforcing the themes of “online”, “health” and “family” for our ever-changing future.

“In a sea of changes, however, companies should have an ‘anchor’ in place to help them ride out the storm,” Xu said. “Such an ‘anchor’ is something you firmly believe in, deeply rooted in companies’ DNA and inseparable from their vision.”

Fosun has positioned itself as an innovation-driven, family-oriented, consumer-led business group, whose businesses are focused on the verticals of health, wealth and happiness.

“Amid the coronavirus crisis, all the changes are for the realization of the ultimate, unchanged goal. The ‘anchor’ helps carve out a clear path for us, making sure we can face the rough weather and forge ahead without easily losing our way,” Xu said.

The company’s anti-epidemic operations stimulated the ‘wartime’ morale of the organization, and it is confident that it can grasp global industrial opportunities in the post-outbreak era, Xu added.

Contact the writer at sophia@chinadailyhk.com