China Spawns Its Latest Renewable Energy Billionaire.

Forbes Staff.

Cao Renxian, chairman of China’s Sungrow Power Supply, has joined the ranks of the world’s renewable energy billionaires following record closing highs in the share price of his Shenzhen-listed company this week.
Sungrow makes power supply equipment for the solar and wind power industries, mainly inverters and converters. Its revenue rose by 44% last year to 3 billion yuan, or $479 million. That helped to boost net profit to 291.7 million yuan, or $46.6 million, an increase of 61% from 2013.

Cao, 46,  taught at Hefei University of Technology in eastern China’s Anhui Province in 1993-98 and founded Sungrow in 1997. He owns 39% of the company, a stake worth 6.3 billion yuan, or $1 billion, at today’s record closing price of 25.99 yuan.
Sungrow’s shares have gained more than 40% in the past year.  The small-cap ChiNext index at the Shenzhen Stock Exchange has soared 47% in past year, fueling in part by expectations of declining interest rates in China that would make equities investments more attractive than bank deposits.
China’s richest man, Hanergy chairman Li Hejun, also hails from solar power industry. His flagship business, Hong Kong-listed Hanergy Thin-Film Power Group, boasts a market cap  six times that of top U.S. thin-film panel supplier First Solar.  China’s government is seeking to advance the solar industry to help remedy to the country’s appalling air pollution, an effort that has also benefitted Sungrow.
Sungrow said last November it would form two joint ventures with Samsung SDI that would focus on lithium battery business.
Sungrow employs more than 1,000 people, and has a U.S. headquarters in San Francisco, according to its website.
Cao ranked No. 369 on the 2014 Forbes China Rich List  published last October with wealth of $730 million.

forbes.