Hengli Family's "Pointing Stone into Gold": 2.1 Billion Yuan Bottom-Fishing in Shipbuilding, Transforming into a Trillion-Yuan Listed Company in Four Years

How did AI · Chen Jianhua and his wife double their wealth through shipbuilding industry transformation?

Produced by | Damo Finance

Continuous private placements raising over 10 billion yuan, Jiangsu’s richest couple keeps expanding their capital operations.

On March 24, *ST Songfa (603268.SH) announced that its application for issuing A-shares to specific investors has been accepted by the Shanghai Stock Exchange. *ST Songfa issued a private placement plan in January this year, aiming to raise funds by issuing shares to no more than 35 specific investors, with a total target of no more than 7 billion yuan.

The large-scale private placement by *ST Songfa mainly aims to further expand its shipbuilding capacity. The company plans to allocate the raised funds to three major projects: an integrated high-end green intelligent ship manufacturing project, a green ship manufacturing upgrade project, and a supporting project for the green high-end ship manufacturing project at berths 3-6.

When *ST Songfa announced this round of private placement, it was less than half a year since its previous private placement. In August 2025, *ST Songfa completed a 4 billion yuan private placement, which was invested in the Hengli Shipbuilding (Dalian) green high-end equipment manufacturing project and the first phase of Hengli Heavy Industries’ international ship research and design center.

Behind these capital operations lies the “ambition” of *ST Songfa’s actual controllers, Chen Jianhua and Fan Hongwei. In 2022, the couple entered the shipbuilding industry, and in 2024, they transferred their shipbuilding business entity Hengli Heavy Industries into the listed company *ST Songfa, transforming this once ceramic enterprise into the “No. 1 private shipbuilding stock.”

After the transfer of shipbuilding assets, *ST Songfa’s performance rapidly improved. In 2025, the company’s revenue reached 21.639 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 274.95%, and net profit attributable to shareholders was 2.655 billion yuan, up 1083.05%. As profits rebounded, the company also announced plans to revoke its delisting warning, achieving a “star removal” status.

*ST Songfa’s stock price also surged significantly. Since trading suspension in 2024, the stock price rose from 14.35 yuan per share to a peak of 132.60 yuan, an increase of over 8 times. As of the close on March 25, the stock closed at 120.65 yuan per share, with a total market value of 117.1 billion yuan.

As the actual controllers of *ST Songfa, Chen Jianhua and Fan Hongwei’s wealth has also skyrocketed. Currently, they control two A-share companies with market caps exceeding 100 billion yuan: Hengli Petrochemical (600346.SH) and *ST Songfa. In the 2026 Hurun Global Rich List, the couple’s net worth is estimated at 250 billion yuan, ranking among China’s top ten richest, making them Jiangsu’s richest, with their wealth doubling compared to last year.

Notably, while building *ST Songfa into a leading shipbuilding enterprise, Chen Jianhua and Fan Hongwei are also gradually cultivating the next generation of successors. Last August, their son Chen Hanlun was appointed director and general manager of *ST Songfa, making him one of the youngest general managers in A-shares at age 25.

Building a Shipbuilding Giant

Chen Jianhua and Fan Hongwei’s journey into shipbuilding began in 2022. That year, Hengli Group, through its subsidiary Hengli Heavy Industries, acquired STX Dalian assets for 2.11 billion yuan. STX Dalian was once China’s largest foreign-funded shipyard but entered bankruptcy liquidation in 2015 due to market and other factors, with multiple auctions ending in no sale.

The couple’s move into shipbuilding was driven by two reasons: to support Hengli Group’s oil, coal, and finished goods transportation businesses, and to seize the growth opportunities in the industry.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, global shipbuilding capacity has been significantly reduced. Coupled with increasing global shipping trade and aging ships, the market has been in a state of supply shortage since 2020. According to a CITIC Securities research report, global shipbuilding demand is projected to grow from 47.32 million CGT in 2023 to 78.18 million CGT in 2032, with a compound annual growth rate of 5.74%.

After taking over STX Dalian, Hengli Heavy Industries quickly completed capacity upgrades and began full operations in early 2023. Subsequently, Hengli Heavy Industries experienced rapid growth, with revenues of 663 million yuan and 5.496 billion yuan in 2023 and 2024, respectively; net profits attributable to shareholders were 1 million yuan and 301 million yuan.

With the business on track, Chen Jianhua and Fan Hongwei began planning to incorporate Hengli Heavy Industries into *ST Songfa.

In 2018, Hengli Group acquired control of *ST Songfa for 820 million yuan. At that time, *ST Songfa was a supplier of daily-use ceramics, mainly producing home ceramics, custom ceramics, hotel ceramics, and ceramic bottles. Since Hengli Group took control, *ST Songfa’s performance declined continuously, with revenue dropping from 591 million yuan in 2018 to 206 million yuan in 2023, and the company falling into losses after 2021.

In October 2024, *ST Songfa announced a major asset restructuring, injecting Hengli Heavy Industries for 8.006 billion yuan and divesting its original daily ceramics business. The restructuring was completed in August 2025.

Post-restructuring, *ST Songfa quickly became a leading player in China’s shipbuilding industry. Last year, *ST Songfa received new shipbuilding orders totaling 20.0972 million tons, ranking second globally after China State Shipbuilding Corporation. According to Hengli Group’s official website, in 2025, the company’s ship orders reached 115 vessels, with a total contract value exceeding 100 billion yuan.

The large volume of orders has also challenged *ST Songfa’s capacity. The announcement shows some orders are scheduled for delivery in 2030 and beyond. To optimize delivery capacity, improve financial structure, and strengthen capital, the company conducted two rounds of private placements after restructuring, raising over 10 billion yuan in total, all aimed at expanding capacity.

Jiangsu’s Richest Man’s Capital Empire

As the leader of Hengli Group, Chen Jianhua and Fan Hongwei started in the textile industry, gradually expanding into petrochemicals, new chemical materials, and shipbuilding. In 2024, Hengli Group’s total revenue reached 871.5 billion yuan, ranking third among China’s top private enterprises, behind JD.com and Alibaba.

Hengli Petrochemical is the core listed platform of Hengli Group, mainly producing aromatics, olefins, basic chemicals, fine chemicals, and downstream materials, with an annual processing capacity of 20 million tons of crude oil and 5 million tons of raw coal, and producing 5.2 million tons of PX, 1.8 million tons of fiber-grade ethylene glycol, and 1.8 million tons of pure benzene.

In 2022, due to international tensions and other factors, oil prices surged sharply, causing Hengli Petrochemical’s profits to plummet. Over the next two years, performance gradually recovered. However, in 2025, affected by industry downturns and compressed chemical product spreads, results declined again. In the first three quarters of 2025, revenue fell 11.46% year-on-year to 157.467 billion yuan, and net profit attributable to shareholders decreased 1.61% to 5.023 billion yuan.

The couple holds significant stakes in both listed companies. They own 75.64% of Hengli Petrochemical and 79.83% of *ST Songfa.

Beyond these two companies, Chen Jianhua and Fan Hongwei also planned to spin off Hengli Group’s subsidiary Kanghui New Materials and merge it with Dalian Thermal Power (600719.SH), but this plan was terminated in August 2024.

It’s also noteworthy that the couple is actively grooming their children to take over the group. Their daughter Chen Yiting, 33, is currently vice chairman of Hengli Group. Their son Chen Hanlun, who was appointed vice president of Hengli Group in March 2024 and became general manager of *ST Songfa last August, is also being prepared to lead the family empire.