At the end of 2023, Forbes unveiled the list of the world's top 10 fastest-growing billionaires in annual wealth, including tech giants such as Musk, Zuckerberg and Bezos, who have taken advantage of the tide of artificial intelligence and achieved a leap in wealth. It is worth noting that two Chinese entrepreneurs are also on this list, namely Huang Jenxun of Nvidia and Peng Yunpeng, who is famous.
With an astonishing wealth growth of US$47.9 billion (about 340 billion yuan), Peng Yunpeng easily surpassed the leaders of technology giants such as Google and Microsoft and advanced to the fourth place on the list of the world's richest people. The intuitive interpretation of this value is that in the past year, his average daily net increase is about 9.%.300 million RMB, converted to every second, the net wealth value increased by 1080,000 yuan.
Surprisingly, Peng's success does not rely on emerging technology industries, but on seemingly "old" traditional industries such as timber, petrochemicals, and energy. The total assets of 53.4 billion US dollars accumulated by him not only made him the richest man in Indonesia in one fell swoop, but also surpassed the total wealth.
The sum of the second and third places has become the Chinese billionaire with the most significant wealth growth in 2023.
Tracing the life trajectory of Peng Yunpeng, he was born in 1944 on the island of Kalimantan in western Indonesia, and his ancestral home is Lufeng City, Guangdong Province, China. His grandfather went to Indonesia from Guangdong to work hard, and finally took root, making the Peng family an authentic Indonesian overseas Chinese.
Peng Yunpeng's father has worked in many occupations, mainly rubber plantation tapping, and will work as a tailor in his spare time, despite his hard work, he can barely support the family. It wasn't until Peng Yunpeng was 9 years old that he had the opportunity to enroll in school.
Peng Yunpeng was gifted and intelligent, helping his family work in the morning and insisting on going to school in the afternoon, with his excellent learning ability, he skipped a grade in a row, and completed primary school in just three years. However, the financial limitations of his family made it impossible for him to continue his education after graduating from primary school.
The poor life is like a cage, and Peng Yunpeng immediately entered the society after graduating from middle school and went through hardships. He worked as an apprentice, shop clerk, and even in the most difficult times of life, he drove minibuses from city to city, soliciting customers along the way.
Finally, when Peng Yunpeng was 23 years old, a turning point in fate quietly came. In 1967, he met Huang Shuangan, a well-known Chinese entrepreneur, in the process of engaging in international **.
Despite his limited educational background, he used his keen business insight to work in a timber mill for three years before independently founding East Kalimantan's first timber company to obtain a logging franchise, Caiyuanti Company, at the age of 26.
Peng Yunpeng was deeply influenced by Huang Shuangan's broad vision and profound pattern, and Huang Shuangan also appreciated the pragmatism and talent of this young junior, so the two quickly established a deep resonance and friendship. After two years, Peng Yunpeng was invited to join Caiyuandi Company and became a member of the company's start-up team.
In the next 8 years, Peng Yunpeng promoted the gradual transformation of "Caiyuandi Company" with his unremitting efforts and outstanding talents, and developed into a strong "Caiyuandi Group". He started as an ordinary staff member and worked his way up the ranks to take charge of the financial operations of the entire group and was appointed as the company's general manager.
In the mid-70s, Indonesia quickly became one of the world's largest timber exporters thanks to the investment policies of the "New Order"** under Suharto's leadership. In this land of opportunities, a new era of business is slowly beginning.
In 1977, Peng Yunpeng said goodbye to Caiyuandi and founded Barito Pacific. Perhaps he didn't anticipate at the time that this small lumber mill would evolve into a timber empire that would dominate Southeast Asia.
Peng Yunpeng's extraordinary courage and forward-looking awareness began to emerge the moment he set foot on Mangolay Island. Although the island is rich in natural resources, it is considered a "barren land" due to its harsh environment, and several foreign companies have tried and failed to develop it.
The 33-year-old Peng Yunpeng resolutely applied to Indonesia** for the forest management rights of Mangolay Island, a move that stunned the then Minister of Industry, and some even questioned his sanity.
However, Peng Yunpeng ignored the skepticism and ridicule of the outside world, and led his team to build port facilities, improve living facilities and build a large-scale plywood factory in this wild land, attracting tens of thousands of workers to work here. His name was engraved in the history of Indonesia's business community for the first time as he transformed the desolate island into a bustling industrial town, where timber and plywood products were exported to all parts of Indonesia.
At the groundbreaking ceremony, Peng Yunpeng said frankly: "It takes great courage and tenacity to join this region, we did not study the successes and failures, the most important thing is to be determined to build and change. ”
Loaded with timber, the boats sail through the islands along dense rainforest waterways and eventually towards the vast Pacific Ocean. By the early 90s, Barido Group had 70 timber processing plants throughout Indonesia and 5.5 million hectares of rainforest mining rights, earning Peng Yunpeng the nickname "The King of the World's Tropical Rainforests".
With an annual production capacity of 2.2 million cubic metres of plywood and 200,000 cubic metres of sawn timber, the Group is firmly in the position of the world's largest producer and exporter of trimlywood. As a major employer in rural Indonesia, the Barido Group provides stable jobs to more than 300,000 families every year.
However, large-scale timber harvesting has exacerbated the rate of loss of ancient rainforests. Faced with such a reality, Peng Yunpeng is deeply worried. Born in the rainforest, he has a deep affection for nature and is determined to take action.
He opened up new land around Palembang, Sumatra, and implemented large-scale afforestation projects, pursuing a harmonious coexistence of economic benefits and ecological protection. ** Highly affirmed his sustainability strategy, not only by granting preferential loan terms, but also by deliberately extending the repayment period of Barrido to 8 years later.
Peng's move into the petrochemical industry in 1991 is widely regarded as the most risky move of his career. At that time, Indonesia lacked modern petrochemical plants in the country, and its dependence on foreign countries was serious, especially the growing demand for domestic resource processing, and huge amounts of money were used to import oil, natural gas and other raw materials, which undoubtedly caused a headache for the Indonesian authorities.
After years of experience on the business battlefield, Peng Yunpeng accurately captured the pain points of the market and proposed to spend 22The $500 million plan to build a large-scale chemical plant was immediately highly supported. Just three years later, the factory was successfully put into operation, producing 1.65 million tons of chemical raw materials per year, which not only greatly reduced the country's foreign exchange expenditure, but also rapidly grew into the largest petrochemical enterprise in Southeast Asia.
Since then, Peng Yunpeng has actively sought international cooperation and extended an olive branch to Sinopec, and the two sides have jointly invested in the construction of two major projects: an oil refinery and a urea plant. This move was praised by the local ** as "an unprecedented work of courage", and Peng Yunpeng responded indifferently: "I love challenging projects, and since the time and energy required for large projects and small projects are almost the same, I am more willing to devote myself to big projects." ”
At the same time, the pattern of Indonesia's auto market has also undergone drastic changes with Peng Yunpeng's intervention. For a long time, William Soriajaya has dominated the Asterda automobile kingdom under his control, including Toyota, BMW, Lexus and other well-known brands, occupying half of the Indonesian auto market.
However, in 1993, the Soriajaya family suffered a crisis, and its eldest son, the Suma Bank, was severely non-performing due to bad loans and up to 1External debt of IDR 5 trillion is in a desperate situation. Under pressure from creditors, William was forced to make the painful decision of a 76% stake in Asterda. The Compass editorial asserted: "Only Peng Yunpeng can take on the heavy task of saving Asteda." ”