Rise & Rise

Virgin Australia’s new shareholder, China’s HNA Group, has had a remarkable rise to prominence since it was founded in 1993. Today, its tentacles spread across the globe and it continues to splash cash on investments, particularly in the aviation arena.

Chen Feng, the 63-year-old founder and chairman of the HNA Group, presides over his fast-growing empire from his base at Haikou, provincial capital of Hainan province, the tropical island known as China’s Hawaii. He has never been shy about his ambitions. Though mostly steering clear of interviews, back in 2014 he did tell Bloomberg Markets: “We want to be everywhere”.

A couple of years down the track he’s well on the way to achieving that goal. “By 2020, we can become one of the top 100 companies, and by 2030, we want to be one of the top 50,” he declared. “Assets are still cheap in the US and Europe, and we will continue to acquire them. We need a batch of world-class companies to emerge from China to help the country’s growth, and HNA will be one of those. ” The Chinese conglomerate, with holdings in everything from tourism to shipping, retail, real estate, financial services and, of course, aviation, is well on the way. Last year, it hit Fortune magazine’s list of top 500 global companies for the first time with more than $25 billion in revenue. In the past year alone HNA has spent some $20 billion buying or taking stakes in overseas companies, including the $159 million on a 13 per cent share in Virgin Australia, with a plan to raise that to near 20 per cent in future.