Chen Lihua Biography
Chen Lihua is the founder and chairman of Fuwah International Group, a major commercial real estate developer in Beijing. He is the founder of The China Red Sandalwood Museum.
How old is Chen Lihua? – Age
She is 81 years old as of 2022. She was born in 1941 in Beijing, China.
Chen Lihua Family
She is a Qing dynasty descendant of a noble Manchu family. Her family lost their estates and became poor when the Manchu Qing dynasty fell apart.
Chen Lihua Wife
Chen is married to Chi Zhongrui, a Chinese actor. She is the mother of one son and two daughters. She now lives in her Red Sandalwood Museum in China.
Chen Lihua The China Red Sandalwood Museum
She invested 20 billion yuan in the China Red Sandalwood Museum, which she founded in 1999. The museum is 25,000 square meters in size. She attributed her fondness for red sandalwood to her childhood years spent at Summer Palace, where the wood is used in the furnishings. She has also donated works made of sandalwood to museums all over the world.
Chen is also known for her philanthropy and social responsibility. Fu Wah donated 130 million yuan in 2005 and 265 million yuan in 2004 to disaster relief.
Chen Lihua Net Worth – Wealth
She has an estimated net worth of $5 billion as of 2022. Forbes ranked her as the tenth richest mainland Chinese in 2014, the richest woman in China, and one of only 19 female billionaires in the world who did not inherit their wealth. Zhou Qunfei, a touchscreen entrepreneur, surpassed Chen as China’s richest woman in 2015.
Chen Lihua Business Journey
Chen had to drop out of high school due to financial constraints and start her own furniture repair business. Chen moved to Hong Kong in the early 1980s to continue her furniture buying and reselling business. Her Hong Kong business was successful enough that she was able to purchase 12 villas.
She returned to Beijing in the late 1980s to expand her real estate business. In the early 1990s, she founded Fuwah International Group. Though real estate is the company’s primary business, it also has a diverse portfolio that includes agriculture, tourism, electronics, hospitality, and red sandalwood art production, among other things. She has recently delegated daily management of her businesses to her son, preferring to focus on her museum instead.