Until his death, many people only know, this invisible big brother, and he also used to give 160,000 employees to build a house, but they use 200 yuan cell phone, he is the richest man in Shandong Zhang Shiping. In the remote Zouping County, Shandong Province, there are two such enterprises Weiqiao Textile and Weiqiao Aluminum, and they have 160,000 employees under one ****. And in the ranking of China's top 500 private enterprises in 2017, Weiqiao Group's total revenue reached more than 30 billion dollars, ranking third, crushing many well-known enterprises.
The owner of Weiqiao Group is Zhang Shiping, who is known as the "Aluminum King", "Asia's Cotton King" and "Shandong's Richest Man". But he was born in a remote countryside, parents are ordinary farmers, for Zhang Shiping's earliest memories as a child is hungry, because he is the eldest in the family, in the junior high school after finishing school stopped studying, in order to bear the burden of the family, Zhang Shiping in Weiqiao Town began his first job ---- carrying a hundred pounds of cotton.
And he stayed in this factory for 17 years, during which time, because of the ability to endure hardship, the most diligent, the old factory director saw him, so he was promoted to fire chief, and then promoted. Until 1981, Zhang Shiping became the factory director, that year, he was 35 years old. And it was here that he began his brilliant entrepreneurial journey.
Zouping County produces a lot of cotton and a lot of cotton oil factories, and the cotton oil factory managed by Zhang Shiping was supervised by the county supply and marketing cooperative, as well as being the second-most popular one.
"In the workshop, there are all kinds of urine and feces, and there is not a piece of glass in the windows" was the true picture of the factory at that time. Moreover, because the planned economy was still the main focus of the cotton oil factory, it only managed the cotton business, so it would be very busy in the harvesting season, but once the peak season was over, the factory did not have much to do.
In this case, Zhang Shiping became the first in the industry to break the mold, going out to buy all kinds of oil, and he once said he was also the first in the country to break through the traditional wage system, while he also promoted door-to-door sales. And he was rewarded for those efforts with a big boost in the factory's capacity and sales.
In the space of three years, Zhang Shiping turned the most substandard factory into the most profitable in the country's oil and hemp sector, as well as the first in the nation's industrial sector.
In 1984, Zhang Shiping led the factory to achieve a net profit income of 4 million dollars, and in 1985, he was selected as a national commercial model worker, after which he also came to Beijing for the first time and received an audience and praise from the then vice premier.
But the good times didn't last long, a year later, the national cotton industry as a whole declined, and a large number of cotton could not be sold, in the face of such a situation, Zhang Shiping decided to do their own textile.
Zhang Shiping began with the establishment of towel factories, after which he went on to enter a number of fields such as woolen fibers, spinning and weaving, while he took great strides to promote the advancement of textile factories while seizing the opportunity of national policies. In 1998, he converted oil and cotton factories into the privately-held, state-participated Weiqiao Textile Group, which was renamed Weiqiao Venture Group in 2003.
In the following five years, Weiqiao Group invested 17 billion dollars to increase related equipment several times, and also introduced related technology and personnel.
By 2005, Zhang Shiping had made Weiqiao the world's largest cotton mill, and he had established himself as the king of cotton.
But it wasn't his textile industry that made Zhang Shiping truly famous around the world, but the electricity he developed along the way.
Originally, when Weiqiao's textile mills were developing on a large scale, they suffered from a lack of heat and power supply.
At that time, China was in a time of tight power supply, electricity is often the case, for which the state has also issued a policy to encourage capable enterprises to provide their own power plants.
So Zhang Shiping set up the first power plant with his own money, which not only solved the problem of electricity, but also generated a lot of leftover electricity. And after Weiqiao Textile's dyeing and printing project began, there wasn't enough electricity again, so a second power plant was created.
So, Zhang Shiping's cotton textile industry is also getting bigger and bigger, and later, he looked at the electrolytic aluminum project, and in this industry, the cost of electricity accounted for 40%-50%, and Zhang Shiping because of its own power plant, so the advantage is more obvious.
According to public information, in the world 90% of the aluminum raw material for the manufacture of Apple's cell phone cases comes from Weiqiao Group, and Zhang Shiping's aluminum company China Hongqiao has surpassed Russia's aluminum company to become the world's first.
According to media reports, it is rumored that Zhang Shiping has been using a cell phone that costs more than 200 yuan, and that he bought 10 cell phones as spares to prevent accidents because he was afraid of losing and breaking them.
At the same time, Zhang Shiping also has an Apple cell phone, which he occasionally uses to take pictures, and in addition to taking pictures, he also uses this cell phone to show others the source of the material above Weiqiao Group, so that people can further understand.
And Zhang Shiping doesn't use a computer, nor does he have WeChat, while his 200-yuan cell phone is a hotline for employee complaints, and he often receives text messages from ordinary employees.
Compared to many people will bring a lot of things on business trips, Zhang Shiping business trips, take the bag on the go, without an assistant, at the same time, Zhang Shiping said publicly that he is not accustomed to those who have the money and power to pay attention to the scene of the platoon with a lot of people
Zhang Shiping live in deep simplicity, do not like to socialize, he likes to return home, and his wife and children to eat together, and he especially like to eat corn nests. But Zhang Shiping, a simple man all his life, gave Weiqiao Group's 160,000 employees a promise: to build houses for them, to support them in old age, to have a doctor when they are sick, and to send their children to school.
Today, Weiqiao Group sends out more than 7 billion yuan in wages each year, the company's own clinic will allow employees to enjoy low-priced medical care, and the total area of staff housing alone has reached more than 6.7 million square meters, but also built seven high-level kindergartens, which can ensure that more than 10,000 children go to school.
It also shows that Zhang Shiping's promises are not just words, but are actually honored.
In 2015, Zhang Shiping once publicly said that the entrepreneur he respected most was Wang Yongqing, and he also said that he was not good at making connections and had no need to do so, and that he had made up his mind 10 years ago not to enter the real estate and futures markets.
In September 2018, Weiqiao Venture Group carried out a reappointment of senior staff, and the chairman of the board changed from Zhang Shiping to Zhang Bo, Zhang Shiping's son.
According to relevant reports, as Zhang Shiping's son, Zhang Bo has been internalized as the successor of the group since a long time ago, and Zhang Shiping's two daughters also hold important positions in the group.
On May 23, 2019, the Propaganda Department of Zouping County, Shandong Province, issued a news release: the founder of Shandong Weiqiao Venture Group, the chairman of the board of directors, Zhang Shiping, passed away due to an illness at the age of 73, so Zhang Shiping ended his brilliant life, and his life of simplicity as a person has been praised by the descendants and learn from him.