Country Garden chairman Yang Guoqiang (L) celebrates with Ronald Arculli, Chairman of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx), during the debut at the Hong Kong Exchanges in Hong Kong April 20, 2007. Shares in Country Garden Holdings Co, which raised US$1.66 billion in the biggest-ever IPO by a Chinese developer, jumped 35 percent in their Hong Kong debut. [Reuters]

The wealth of Yang and her father was hard to track in advance of the Country Garden offering. The co-founders had shunned the media, and, until a corporate reorganization last year, their investments were spread across more than 30 entities, including real estate development companies, a theme park, hotels, a decoration business and a management concern.

People in Guangdong Province are familiar with Country Garden, which sold its first project -- Bi Gui Yuan -- in 1997 in Shunde, a city on the outskirts of provincial capital Guangzhou and one of China's richest urban areas. Over 10 years, the group has accumulated about 19 million square meters (7.3 square miles) of land reserves by the end of January.

Family photo [163.com]

Nonetheless, Yang had managed to maintain the lowest of low profiles until he showed up in public for a road show in support of the IPO last month.

The 52-year-old Yang was born in an impoverished village in Shunde, reportedly never wearing new clothes before he was 17. He earned a living by raising cattle and growing crops before becoming a bricklayer and contractor, according to the Hong Kong Economic Times.

In 1992, Yang and several partners built 4,000 houses in a Shunde development. Hit by a real estate tax implemented to cool down rising property prices the next year, Yang had a hard time in selling the properties. To solve the crises, he built an international school inside the villa that eventually attracted affluent Guangzhou residents to the houses.

Yang has a good relationship with the local government and is currently a member of the Standing Committee of the People's Political Consultative Conference in Foshan, one of the largest cities in Guangdong Province. 

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