Geely boss Li Shufu "one of five most important men for car industry" = Daily Telegraph

Li Shufu

The chairman and founder of China’s biggest privately owned car firm is the
self-styled Henry Ford
of China.

Geely, alongside car makers such as Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation
and Beijing Automotive Import & Export Corporation, is leading the rise
of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) nations in the sector.

Ratan
Tata’s Tata Motors has already snapped up Jaguar Land Rover,
while in Russia Oleg Deripaska’s Gaz is involved with Opel, but 2009
has seen China overtake the US as the biggest car market in the world and
globally its companies are the most prominent in attempting to link up with
Western manufacturers. Geely has a tie-up with Manganese Bronze, the London
taxi maker, and is eyeing a move for Volvo.

Geely has a relatively small presence in China, building just over 200,000
cars a year at present, but the company is growing at home and abroad.

Li Shufu’s ambitions for his Hong Kong-listed company were boosted in
September when Goldman Sachs invested $334m, a vindication of the company’s
potential.

Li is thought to be one of China’s richest businessmen and his ambition has
often made him controversial in an industry dominated by state-businesses.

“Making cars is not as mysterious as people think,” he has said in the past.
“A car is merely four wheels, a steering wheel and an engine. The level of
technology used in manufacturing cars is very high. It seemed to me that I
just needed to buy the technology and the parts, and pay for engineers.”