Chen Feng (businessman)
Chen Feng (; born 1953) is a Chinese businessman and founder of business conglomerate HNA Group and Hainan Airlines. Early life and education Chen Feng was born in June 1953 in Huozhou, Shanxi province and raised in Beijing, the son of middle-rank Communist Party officials. During the Cultural Revolution, Chen worked for the People's Liberation Army Air Force in Sichuan; after the revolution was over in 1979, Feng worked for the Civil Aviation Administration of China and the National Air Regulations Bureau in China. In 1984, he won a scholarship to study at the Lufthansa College of Air Transportation Management in Germany. In 1989, he took a job at the World Bank's loan office in Haikou and in 1990, he went to work for the Aviation Business Assistant to Provincial Governor in Hainan province which had seen a surge in development as a tourist destination. Chen would get further education during his career including a M.B.A. from the Maastricht School of Management in the Netherlands in 1995 and studied at Harvard Business School in 2002. Career After efforts by Hainan Province to establish a regional airline (Hainan Provincial Airlines) were not successful, Chen was tasked with bringing in private expertise and investment. Chen was able to raise 250 million yuan (US$31.25 million) in new capital, 75% from 24 institutional investors, 20% from existing corporate staff, and 5% from the Hainan government. In 1993, Chen launched the Hainan Airlines Company Limited China's first joint-stock air-transport enterprise. Due to the 1997 Asian financial crisis - which caused the collapse of several local financial and real estate companies - the airline was recapitalized by the Hainan government and restructured and its name changed to Hainan Airlines (HNA) Company, Ltd. Hainan province was particularly affected by the crisis due to it being both a tourist and retirement destination that had seen a high amount of speculative development and lending. In 1995, George Soros invested $25 million in the airline for a 14.8% stake, becoming its largest shareholder. Hainan Airlines In 2000, the Chinese national government forced the creation of three major domestic aviation companies: Air China Ltd., China Eastern Airlines Corp, and China Southern Airlines, which accelerated Chen's plans for expansion. In 2000, Chen co-founded a holding company, the HNA Group, together with partner Wang Jian, and used it as a vehicle to purchase Xi'an-based Chang'an Airlines in August 2000 and China Xinhua Airlines and Shanxi Airlines, both in 2001. In August 2001, Hainan Airlines merged with Haikou-based Meilan International Airport in Hainan province. Despite the mergers and acquisitions, Hainan Airlines remains the 4th player in China with 15% market share in 2012. In June 2006, Chen created another holding company, Grand China Airlines Holdings, to hold the airline assets of the HNA Group - then consisting of 100 planes and 30 billion yuan (US$3.75 billion) in assets, freeing the HNA Group to expand into other business lines. At the time, Chen owned 32.75% of Grand China Airline Holdings shares. In 2012, the HNA