When pictures appeared online of Wang Keke wearing not one but two gold Apple Watches, the reaction online was always going to be a mix of envy and outrage. The fact that Wang Keke is a husky dog belonging to Wang Sicong, son of China's richest man, the property mogul Wang Jianlin, has had web users howling.
The photos have also highlighted a growing debate in China about succession. The first generation of entrepreneurs behind the country's small and medium-sized family businesses are starting to retire, and are struggling with the question of how to hand the reins of a successful business to the next generation.
Wang Sicong, who is worth about €13 billion, is no stranger to controversy, but his decision to post pictures of his husky wearing the two watches, each worth about $20,000 has got Chinese webizens fuming.
The dog’s Sina Weibo social-media page has more than 714,000 followers and, while much of the reaction has been positive, remarks Sicong posted as being from the dog: “I have a new watch. I should have four, as I have four legs, but then I thought, four is too tuhao [‘tacky nouveau rich’], so I decided to just wear two. I can’t wear less otherwise it won’t match my identity. Have you got these watches too?”
Wang Sicong (27) is on the board of the giant property empire, Wanda Group, holding 2 per cent of the firm. He is also chairman of private equity firm Prometheus Capital and runs his electronic gaming firm, Invictus.
He caused a stir at a charity auction on Valentine’s Day when he said his main criterion when choosing a girlfriend was that she should be “buxom”, and his often hilarious comments on Sina Weibo, where he has 12.1 million followers, make him one of the more notable of China’s heirs.
Succession is a problem in China, where owners are reluctant to hand on to people outside the clan.
That said, Wang Jianlin, now 62, prides himself on Wanda’s international aspirations and it’s by no means clear that Wang jnr will take over Wanda when Wang retires at 68, as he has indicated he plans to do, to promote Chinese soccer at the behest of President Xi Jinping.
He has said he has yet to decide on a succession plan and would eventually donate most of his holding in Dalian Wanda to charity.
“If he can make himself accepted by everyone [at Wanda] in the next five to eight years, he will succeed me; if he doesn’t have that ability, he won’t,” Wang said.
Private businesses did not exist in China during the planned-economy era that ran from the inception of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 until the late 1970s.
The state sector now accounts for between a third and a quarter of GDP, and this is set to fall further as the government pursues its plan to cut back on state-owned enterprises.
In manufacturing the proportion is even lower, with state-owned firms accounting for 20 per cent of output.
According to the Global Times newspaper, about 90 per cent of China's private enterprises are family businesses. But in the vast majority, about 82 per cent, the children of founding entrepreneurs are unwilling to take over from their parents, and less than a third of family firms have been successful after the handover.
One example of a successful transition often cited came in 2012, when He Xiangjian, founder of the home-appliance giant Midea, passed over the reins to Fang Hongbo, chairman and president of the enterprise's listed arm, rather than to his son, He Jianfeng, who had a nonexecutive board seat.
Since the handover, Midea has expanded strongly, including major growth in its e-commerce business.
