《財富》專訪王健林：解密中國最富有的人之一

　　王健林，萬達集團的創始人和董事長，是中國最富有的人之一。他知道如何安排訪客的行程。今年四月，他用他的私人飛機把來訪的美國電影藝術與科學學院主席霍克·考奇先生從北京送去大連。王健林要在大連開辦一個電影節，他希望把這個電影節與奧斯卡聯系起來。他向考奇展示了萬達的后現代風格的會展中心，鄰近就是五星級的希爾頓酒店，還有一系列萬達的寫字樓、購物中心、公寓樓。當晚回北京后，王健林堅持邀請所有人去他的私人會所小聚。

　　王健林的夫人林寧是會所的所有者，VIP廳里有舞池、巨大的屏幕、沙發，各種小吃和紅酒，以及卡拉OK設備。考奇唱得還不錯，但王健林的歌喉讓我大吃一驚，這位58歲的地產大亨是個一流的男高音，擅長蒙古和西藏的民歌。我還沒有聽過比他唱的《美麗的草原我的家》更動聽的版本。

　　王健林并不僅僅是個埋頭苦干的人。他很精明，善于抓住機會，非常雄心勃勃。盡管他是世界級的富翁，在中國之外卻很少人知道他。正如他同時代的中國商業巨頭那樣，王健林抓住了中國從落后的農業國邁向城市經濟大國的機遇(彭博社估計王健林的財富達到83億美元)。他的策略是從中國消費者不斷增長的需要中掙錢，先是蓋公寓樓，然后是寫字樓、商場、電影院、KTV。他在中國有69個萬達廣場，這里面有摩天大樓，是多功能自給自足的小城市。萬達廣場幾乎每兩三個星期就開業一個。王健林說，他有足夠多的萬達廣場項目儲備，在未來3年內，公司每年的增長率能夠達到30%，2015年收入將達到500億美元。

　　王健林正在開始一個新的篇章，這個勇敢和帶有風險的擴張計劃符合國家對萬達的期待。他響應政府鼓勵對外投資的號召，大舉向海外進軍。去年他以27.5億美元買下AMC公司，這是中國民營企業收購美國公司付出的最高價格。一夜之間，萬達擁有了全世界最多的電影屏幕。今年萬達還將在倫敦和洛杉磯建造酒店，王健林計劃使萬達的logo印在全世界大城市的豪華酒店。

　　王健林也向國內的媒體、娛樂和旅游投入數十億美元的資金，中國的國內消費還將不斷增長。去年萬達在靠近朝鮮邊界的長白山開了一個滑雪場。在未來的幾年內，萬達還將在華南和華中建造3個旅游城，擁有豪華酒店，迪士尼式的主題公園和拉斯維加斯式的秀場。萬達對影視行業的興趣也不斷增長，還在大連將建造一個電影制作基地。

　　萬達的目標是什么?王健林說，目標是使萬達躋身世界超一流公司的行列，同時也提高中國的實力。王健林說，世界大國(如英國和美國)的力量和影響力來自這些國家擁有的偉大公司，這些公司促進了國家的發展。王健林認為，公司也將在中國的發展中發揮同樣的作用。對他來說，這就是中國夢的核心：像萬達這樣的公司不斷聚集財富，擴大影響力，為中國在國際舞臺上的主導地位鋪平道路。

　　王健林的創業故事雖然是中國式的，但也包含了美國白手起家獲得成功的經典元素。王健林成長在一個偏遠的省份，謊報年齡從而在15歲就能參軍，通過函授課程在軍校學習，在30多歲時開始經商，25年后擁有了中國最大的商業地產公司，總資產達到600億美元。從持有物業面積來看，他已經成為世界第二大不動產業主。萬達的發展計劃里目前包含大約72個在建項目，王健林預測萬達在未來幾年中將超越美國的西蒙房地產公司，成為全球最大的不動產企業。

　　2010年，王健林在北京獲得企業領袖終身成就獎，頒獎的是聯想主席柳傳志。柳傳志介紹時告訴觀眾，王健林的父親是打土豪的老紅軍，然后他轉身問王健林：“我想問你和父親在家里是怎樣交談的?他是討厭你還是喜歡你?”

　　王健林當時大吃一驚：“這不是柳主席原本為我準備的問題。”但他很快恢復了鎮定，解釋說他已經為年老的父母蓋了房子(在四川成都一個萬達小區里)，他的父母挺感謝的。“雖然在過去，他們的目標是打倒富人階級，現在他們完全意識到，有錢比沒有錢好。”

　　王健林的父親已經102歲了，曾經在四川務農，為了解決溫飽而參軍，經歷了長征、國共內戰和抗日戰爭，還差一點參加了抗美援朝。最后他榮歸故里，在四川阿壩從事林業工作并結婚生子。他一共有五個孩子，都是男孩，王健林是長子。

　　據王健林的母親回憶，王健林是“孩子王”。父母早上去上班后，他照顧幾個弟弟，晚上父母去參加政治會議，他就負責從村子的食堂打飯回家。作為戰斗英雄的長子，他注定要參軍。在1969年，王健林入伍，表現出色，在27歲就成為了一名正團職干部。軍隊孕育了王健林建功立業的決心，并且為他日后成為一名企業家打下基礎。

　　在1987年，為了響應國家“百萬裁軍”的號召，王健林告別了十多年的部隊生活。轉業后，王健林來到大連市西崗區區政府任辦公室主任。一年后，一個偶然的“機會”使得王健林的人生軌跡發生了重大轉變———負債數百萬元的西崗區住宅開發公司瀕臨破產，區政府為了拯救這個“爛攤子”，面向全區公開招賢。王健林主動請纓，自愿去擔任西崗住宅開發公司經理。自此，王健林踏入了地產圈。不過在期間王健林也感覺到了很多束縛——太多的行政干預，以及對補償和福利太多的管控。1992年8月，王健林爭取到了企業改制的機會，大連市西崗住宅開發公司也正式改名為大連萬達集團股份有限公司，后來將總部遷至北京。萬達由兩個漢字組成，寓意長久、富足和繁榮。

　　雖然王健林已經太富有了，但他的富有并未給他父母帶來困擾。他們知道他們的兒子給雅安地震的災民捐了160萬美元，每年他的名字接近中國慈善榜的榜首。盡管他的慈善主要用于幫助企業和教育事業，但兩年前，他給南京的一座古廟捐款1.56億美元用于修繕(王健林自稱不信宗教，只是比較推崇佛教)。王健林的母親說：“曾經有錢人總被認為是壞人，但現在有錢人也可以變成圣人，只要你有這個心。”

　　王健林用軍隊的嚴謹和嚴格來管理萬達。萬達的高級職員基本都是男性。和王健林一樣，他們也都是黑頭發(特別黑，整齊地梳到后面)，而且按照規定，他們全穿黑西裝、白襯衫，系深色領帶。萬達的食堂在規定的時間內為員工提供免費的三餐，但嚴禁吃零食。王健林總是到得早，走得晚。他承認一年只有一周假期，而且不是連著休的。他唯一的嗜好就是收藏和卡拉OK，他每年都在萬達年會上獻歌。

　　每周六早上，王健林召開審圖會。一般要持續一個小時，他坐著，其他人站著。他戴著金邊眼鏡看著圖紙，用一把白色塑料尺子量圖紙上的人行道，皺著眉頭重新把人行道畫了一遍，然后把圖紙掃到一邊，開始研究地圖，隨后把地圖也掃到一邊，重新把圖紙拿過來研究直到他滿意。

　　王健林的方式有點太事必躬親了，不過這也是很有效率的一種方式，保證他新開拓的業務能夠成功。從做規劃到買地到施工，萬達的項目周期在18到24個月。王健林擁有一個專屬的軟件來幫助他做決策。萬達的高管透露，萬達從來沒發生過項目延期竣工或者超過預算的情況。每年都有幾十家公司來萬達取經。

　　至今王健林沒有被卷入任何丑聞中。在房地產行業，對于他這么一位富有又有影響力的人來說，這是很不容易的。所有萬達的項目都從土地開始，而中國所有的土地都屬于政府所有，所以萬達必須要和政府打交道才能開展業務。政府工作人員很多都是想從商業項目中謀取私利的。

　　王健林說，他從早年創業時就嚴禁貪污。他說，賄賂政府官員有可能帶來短期的效益，但是這不是長久之計。為了杜絕違反職業道德的行為，他通過集團的監管部門進行嚴格管控。在萬達每一筆支出都需要審批。

　　至今為止，王健林并不需要太多外界的資金。他偶爾會邀請企業家朋友們小聚并商討投資計劃。他說：“大家經常聚聚，討論討論，挺好的。”不過萬達遲早要上市，應該是在香港。今年春天萬達購買了恒力地產65%的股份用來借殼上市。消息一出，恒力當日股價飆升了500%。

　　萬達下一步的發展需要更多的外部人才和資金。萬達主推的旅游文化產業中，最重要的是武漢中央文化區，這是一個大型娛樂休閑中心。武漢已經有了一個萬達廣場，接下來要打造高級酒店、主題公園、高科技舞臺表演等等。武漢中央文化區的合作伙伴包括全球舞臺藝術第一人——弗蘭克·德貢，他曾策劃導演美國拉斯維加斯“O秀”、“夢秀”、澳門“水舞間”等著名舞臺節目，還有馬克·菲舍爾，曾擔任北京奧運會、廣州亞運會、倫敦奧運會開閉幕式藝術總監。

　　德貢在今年四月的一個下午來向王健林匯報項目進展，用視頻演示了舞臺秀的大致情況。看上去非常打動人心：演員系著彈力繩，從八層樓高的平臺上縱身一躍;看臺是可伸縮的;各種特效眼花繚亂。德貢說他要以詩般的意境展示中國的整個歷史。王健林的反饋有點讓人摸不著頭腦：“我們需要一個簡單故事把這些元素串起來，比如愛情故事。”

　　王健林回憶說，上一次讓他感到特別興奮的事情是萬達從住宅地產向商業地產轉型。現在面臨另一次轉型，但是規模更大。這次轉型不只是為了賺中國人和外國人的錢，而是想從地產行業的自然屬性中解放出來，轉向由迪斯尼和新聞集團這樣的公司主導的娛樂文化行業中。王健林說：“這是一次由商業地產向文化旅游行業的轉型。”

　　王健林近期訪問了美國，意圖尋找地產投資的機會，同時也提升自身形象。他會見了紐約市長布隆伯格和洛杉磯市長安東尼奧·維拉戈沙，制片人哈維·韋恩斯坦和索尼影視娛樂有限公司CEO邁克爾·林頓，以及摩根大通CEO杰米·戴蒙。唯一的問題是，他的私人飛機G550不能從北京直飛到紐約，必須要在安克雷奇加一次油。

　　這次加油事件似乎有寓意。王健林已經通過建造住宅和寫字樓在中國成為了富豪，現在他希望通過好萊塢將他的財富翻倍。他能走這么遠嗎?現在他正想把他的飛機升級為G650，這樣他就能去到任何想去的地方了。

　　英文報道原文：

　　What's driving one of China's richest men?

　　Wang Jianlin , founder and chairman of closely held Wanda Group and one of the richest men in China, knows how to pack a visitor's itinerary. One day in April, he flies Hawk Koch, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, from Beijing to Dalian, a port city on the Yellow Sea, in his Gulfstream G550. Wang is launching an international film festival in Dalian, and he's hoping to co-brand it with the Oscars. He shows Koch the futuristic new waterfront convention center he built, the new five-star Hilton next door, and some of the many Wanda office buildings, retail complexes, and apartment towers he owns all over town -- Monopoly tokens in a real estate empire that stretches from northeast China to the Himalayas, and Inner Mongolia to the South China Sea. That evening the men join Dalian party officials for a dozen-course dinner, and later still, when they finally get back to Beijing, Wang insists that everyone, including me, accompany him to a private club.

　　Wang is just a member here, by the way; his wife, Lin Ning, owns it. In the VIP lounge are a dance floor and a giant videoscreen and comfortable couches. Coffee tables sag under platters of pineapple, watermelon, dried beef, and almonds, and goblets of red wine. Karaoke microphones await, charging in their stands.

　　The first surprise is that poor Koch, who arrived from LAX at 5:30 that morning, does not completely butcher "When Sonny Gets Blue." But nothing prepares me for Wang's performance. Turns out, the 58-year-old real estate mogul is also a first-class tenor with an exhaustive repertoire of folk songs from Mongolia and Tibet. I think I may never hear a more affecting rendition of "The Beautiful Grassland Is My Home."

　　Wang isn't just indefatigable. He's shrewd, opportunistic, hugely ambitious, and, despite his world-class wealth, almost unknown outside China. Like other Chinese oligarchs of his generation, Wang made his fortune tracking China's rapid ascent from rural backwater to urban economic powerhouse. (Exact numbers are elusive, but Bloomberg estimates Wang's wealth at $8.3 billion, a couple of billion behind China's richest man, beverage magnate Zong Qinghou.) His angle was to monetize the evolving needs of the Chinese consumer: First he built apartments, then offices, then stores, restaurants, movie theaters, and, yes, karaoke centers, and eventually everything together all at once. His iconic Wanda Plazas, of which there are 69, are high-rise, multipurpose, self-contained minicities. Every two or three weeks another one appears somewhere in China. Wang says he has enough Wanda Plazas in the pipeline to keep his top line growing at 30% annually for the next three years, which would make Wanda a $50 billion company by 2015.

　　Now Wang is embarking on a new chapter, a bold and risky expansion that once again aims to coincide with China's latest vision for its companies and its citizens. He is, in keeping with Beijing's desire to encourage outbound international investment, betting big beyond China. He started last year by buying Kansas City-based AMC Entertainment for $2.75 billion -- the highest price ever paid by a privately held Chinese company for an American company. Suddenly Wanda owns more movie screens than anyone else in the world. Later this year construction will begin on Wanda hotels in London and L.A., part of a plan to put the lighted Wanda mark, in English and in Chinese, on luxury hotels in major cities around the world.

　　He's also investing in the much-anticipated rise in domestic consumption, pouring billions into Chinese media, entertainment, and tourism. Last year Wanda opened a ski resort near the border with North Korea. Coming in the next few years: three more resorts in southern and central China, featuring luxury waterfront hotels, Disney-style theme parks, and Vegas-style shows; and in Dalian the world's largest film-production studio, an extension of Wanda's growing interest in movies and TV shows.

　　Wang's goal? He says it's to lift Wanda into what he calls, speaking through an interpreter, "the super-world-class top tier of companies" and, not least, to lift up his country too. Power and influence in great nations like the U.S. and the U.K., Wang says (channeling Calvin Coolidge), derive from the power and influence of great companies: They "raise the country up and make it a superpower." Wang thinks this is the moment when business can play the same role in the People's Republic. To him, that's the essence of the Chinese dream: companies like his building wealth, spreading influence, and paving the way to Chinese dominance on the global stage.

　　Wang's story, while distinctly Chinese, has elements of the classic American arc of the self-made man. He grew up in a distant province, lied about his age so that he could join the army at 15, did college work along the way at a military institute and through correspondence courses, went into business in his thirties, and 25 years later sits atop the biggest commercial real estate empire in China, with total assets worth $60 billion. By square footage he's already the second-biggest landlord in the world, and with nearly six dozen active construction projects in the development pipeline, Wang predicts he'll overcome the leader, U.S. mall developer Simon Property Group, sometime in the next few years.

　　In 2010, Wang picked up a lifetime-achievement award from a group of corporate leaders in Beijing. The presenter was Wang's longtime friend and occasional co-investor Liu Chuanzhi, founder and chairman of Lenovo. (For more, see "Can Lenovo Do It?") Liu began by informing the audience that Wang's father is a Red Army veteran who fought against the rich. Liu then turned to Wang: "I would like to ask how you and your father talk at home. Does he detest you or like you?"

　　According to a flurry of posts on the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, Wang seemed taken aback -- "This isn't the original question President Liu prepared for me" -- but he recovered and tried for levity. He explained that he had set up his aged parents with a house (in a gated Wanda community in the Sichuan city of Chengdu) and that they seemed grateful. "Although their goal in the past was to undermine the rich," he said, "now they wholly feel having money is better than not having it."

　　Wang's father, Wang Yiquan, is 102 years old and a former peasant from a remote part of Sichuan Province who joined the army because he thought it was his best shot at eating every day. He survived the Long March, fought the Kuomintang and the Japanese, and got out just before he would have had to fight the Americans in Korea. Eventually he landed in the Sichuan village of Aba, near Tibet, where he was assigned to the forestry service, and also assigned a wife, Qin Jialin. Together they raised five children, all boys. Jianlin is the oldest.

　　Wang was the "king of the children," Qin Jialin says through an interpreter. He took care of his brothers after his parents left for work in the morning and fetched dinner from the village canteen if his parents had to attend a political meeting at night. As the oldest son of a decorated war hero, Wang was destined for the army. He enlisted in 1969, quickly rose up the ranks (he was a regimental commander at 27), and in the process developed a taste for individual achievement and its rewards -- attributes that would serve him well in his future life as an entrepreneur.

　　In 1985, Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping called for a 1 million reduction in China's armed forces -- part of an effort to shift resources from a military buildup to economic development. Wang offered his resignation and took a post as office director with the Dalian municipal government. While he was working for the city, he learned of a struggling state-owned real estate development company in want of a savior. No initial investment required, that was the deal; just a willingness to take on the debt. Wang turned the company around but felt constrained -- too much government meddling in decision-making, too much control over compensation and incentives. In 1992 he applied for permission to participate in a pilot program to take companies private. He named the company Dalian Wanda Group, and later moved the headquarters to Beijing. Wanda combines two Chinese characters whose meanings suggest longevity, abundance, and prosperity.

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　　As for Liu's question, yes, even though Wang is filthy rich, his wealth doesn't bother his parents. They know their son has already pledged $1.6 million to help victims of an earthquake that struck Sichuan Province in April and that every year his name is near the top of the list of China's biggest charitable donors. Although his focus is on supporting entrepreneurship and education, two years ago Wang set a Chinese single-gift record when he gave $156 million to restore a 15th-century Buddhist temple in Nanjing. (Wang says he's "not religious"; he just got a little "carried away.") "In the past a rich man in many cases is a bad guy," Wang's mother explains. "But nowadays when you are rich, you can be a saint if you want."

　　Wang runs Wanda Group with military rigor and precision. His senior staff are nearly all men. Like Wang, they all have black hair (too-black hair, in Wang's case, combed straight back), and as a rule, they all wear black suits, white shirts, and dark ties. The company cafeteria at headquarters provides every Wanda employee with three free meals a day (at scheduled hours, with no grazing; this isn't Silicon Valley). Wang arrives early and stays late. He admits to just one week of (nonconsecutive) vacation days a year. His only indulgences are art collecting and karaoke, which he performs each year at the Wanda annual meeting.

　　Once a week, usually on Saturday mornings, Wang reviews every current Wanda project. The meeting can last for hours. Wang sits; the planners and architects come and go but remain standing. Plans are unrolled in front of him. He peers at one through gold-rimmed reading glasses, measures a pedestrian walkway with a white plastic ruler, frowns, redraws the walkway, sweeps the plan aside to study a map, sweeps the map aside to return to the plan, and when he's satisfied, gives it his blessing.

　　Wang's way may appear micromanagerial, but it has proved incredibly effective for Wanda -- and could be key to his success as he expands into new areas. Start to finish -- from planning to land acquisition to construction -- Wanda projects are an 18- to 24-month process. A proprietary software system analyzes data and helps Wang make the hundreds of decisions that go into a new building or complex. Wanda executives claim that the company has never once had a project come in late or over budget. Dozens of local companies trek to Wanda each year to learn how it's done.

　　So far, Wang's reputation is unmarred by scandal -- no mean feat for a man of his wealth and influence in today's China, particularly in the realm in which he operates. Every Wanda project starts with land, and all the land in China belongs to the government, meaning Wanda can't get to step one without the consent of bureaucrats, many of whom expect bribes for their cooperation on business deals. (Wanda's original base of operations was Dalian during the 1990s, when the mayor, and later provincial governor, was Bo Xilai. Once a rising star in the Chinese Communist Party, Bo and his wife, Gu Kailai, were implicated in the 2011 death of a British businessman. Bo has been banished from the party and is awaiting trial.)

　　Wang says he has been on guard against corruption since the early days of the company. He says that bribing government officials might bring short-term gain but it's no way to conduct a successful business in the long run. And he has put in place strict controls to discourage unethical behavior by underlings. For instance, there is no such thing as petty cash at Wanda. Every expenditure has a paper trail.

　　Wang has had little need for outside capital thus far. Occasionally, he says, he invites friends -- fellow entrepreneurs like Lenovo's Liu and Yifang Group founder Sun Xishuang -- to co-invest. "It's a great opportunity to get everyone together frequently to chat and discuss," Wang says. But sooner or later Wanda will go public, most likely in Hong Kong, where this spring Wanda opened a path to a backdoor listing by buying a 65% stake in a public company, Hengli Commercial Properties. The day following the announcement, Hengli's stock leaped nearly 500%.

　　The next stage of Wanda's development will require outside expertise as well as capital. The current centerpiece of Wanda's big push into tourism and entertainment is an $8 billion mega-entertainment complex in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province, 500 miles west of Shanghai. There's already a big Wanda Plaza there; luxury hotels, a theme park, and a high-tech stage show will follow. Partners on the project include British architect Mark Fisher, whose studio designed the stage sets for the opening and closing ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics, and Belgian Franco Dragone, a Cirque du Soleil alumnus who bills himself as "the world's most spectacular showmaker."

　　Dragone comes to Wanda's boardroom one afternoon in April for a progress report. "It is my great pleasure to show you on video what we will show audiences in the future," he begins, and fires up his Mac laptop. It looks pretty thrilling: divers plunging from platforms eight stories high on invisible bungee cords, retractable grandstands, troupes of body-suited dancers, and all kinds of special effects. Dragone describes what he's after as a "poetic representation of China's whole history." Wang's response is difficult to read. "We need a simple story to tie the elements together," he says. "Maybe a love story."

　　Wang says the last time he was this excited about a project was back in the early days, when Wanda first made the leap from residential real estate to restaurants and shopping. This feels like a similar shift, he says, but on a grander scale. His new investments aren't just about appealing to deep-pocketed consumers in China and around the word. They're also about escaping the natural limits of real estate and entering a realm inhabited by global entertainment companies like Disney and News Corp., both of which he cites as models. "A transition from commercial retail to culture and tourism" is how he describes it.

　　Wang was in the U.S. recently, on a mission to scout for investment properties and raise his profile. He met with mayors (Michael Bloomberg in New York, Antonio Villaraigosa in Los Angeles), entertainment types (producer Harvey Weinstein, Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton), and J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon. The only problem? He discovered that his fully loaded G550 couldn't make it from Beijing to New York on a single tank of gas; he had to stop in Anchorage for refueling.

　　Some might see that as a metaphor. Here's a guy who made a fortune building apartments and office buildings in China. Now he thinks he can double his wealth by going Hollywood. Does he have that kind of range? He's looking to add a super-long-range G650 to his fleet. That should take him as far as he wants to go. For now.