By his own account in a rare 2010 interview, Liu is from more humble stock, the son of teachers from Guanghan city in the western province of Sichuan. Arriving for the meeting in a Ferrari and wearing a fur coat, Liu told the Wall Street Journal how he made his seed money speculating on steel pipes while still in his 20s, parlaying that into a fortune trading on China’s newly created and chaotic markets in the early 1990s.
Today, Liu’s web of businesses includes five publicly traded companies -- Sichuan Jinlu Group Co. in China, the rest overseas -- and more than 30 closely held units, Hanlong’s website shows. By 2010, the group, founded the year of the botched hit, had more than 12,000 employees worldwide and more than $2.5 billion in revenue. Liu ranked the 314th richest person in Greater China, with wealth of about $1 billion as of February 2013, according to Shanghai-based Hurun Report.
At home, Liu was best known for his philanthropy. He sits on the board of poverty-relief charity China Glory Society with Hangzhou Wahaha Chairman Zong Qinghou, whose $22 billion fortune makes him the country’s richest man, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Dalian Wanda’s Wang Jianlin, the man behind last year’s $2.6 billion takeover of U.S. cinema operator AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. and the nation’s second-wealthiest, with $9 billion, won an award from the group.
Shopping Spree
Hanlong’s first overseas acquisition of public companies began in 2009, with a $200 million investment to take control of Perth-based Moly Mines Ltd., and a commitment to procure about $500 million in funding to develop the company’s Spinifex Ridge molybdenum and copper project. Hanlong said it wanted to invest between $3 billion and $5 billion in mineral assets.
Five months later, Liu agreed to pay an initial $40 million for 12.5 percent of General Moly, the Lakewood, Colorado-based owner of two molybdenum projects in Nevada. A further $40 million investment and $665 million in funding were pledged. The investments, had they followed through to production, would have made Hanlong among the world’s biggest suppliers of the additive used to strengthen steel.
African Assets
Uranium was also a target: Hanlong invested in Marenica Energy Ltd. in November 2010, and now holds 30 percent of the Perth, Western Australia-based explorer with the rights to Namibian deposits that may contain ore worth about $2.6 billion at today’s prices. Hanlong’s interest in Africa continued the following year with an A$143 million ($149 million) bid for Bannerman Resources Ltd., which also holds Namibian deposits.
A week later, Liu made his initial A$1.65 billion offer for the rest of Sundance Resources to gain control of the company’s rail, port and iron-ore project straddling Cameroon and Congo. The slump in iron-ore prices since then prompted Hanlong, which already has a 14 percent stake in Sundance, to cut its offer to A$1.14 billion.
Perth-based Sundance this week said the takeover isn’t likely to succeed as Liu hadn’t been able to secure financial backing before a deadline. General Moly’s spokesman Zach Spencer said China Development Bank, Hanlong’s lead lender, has suspended work on its loan to the company, and there has been no new information. Marenica’s financial viability is doubtful if it can’t find new funding, the company said in its latest annual filing. The shares have slumped 80 percent since Hanlong’s investment.