Produced by Radar Finance Text | Edited by Meng Shuai | Deep Sea
In just over ten years, a Shandong man born in the 1980s created a huge super unicorn in an overseas market that is not well known to the Chinese people.
In the latest "2024 Global Unicorn List", Shein, which was born in China, has become the fifth largest unicorn in the world and the third largest unicorn in China with a value of 460 billion yuan. In the "2024 Hurun Global Rich List" announced earlier, Xu Yangtian, the founder of shein, also became the focus of attention with a wealth of 49.5 billion yuan.
Xu Yangtian, who is now among the billionaires, actually did not have a well-off family background in his early years. While still in school, Xu Yangtian started working part-time outside. After graduation, Xu Yangtian worked for other companies and opened a company in partnership with others. What really allowed him to board the express train of wealth was Shein, which is hailed by the outside world as one of the "Four Little Dragons" of Chinese e-commerce companies going global.
Under the leadership of Xu Yangtian, shein, which is positioned as a cross-border e-commerce platform, has ushered in rapid development. While the company's revenue and profits continue to hit new highs, Shein also continues to expand its business territory through frequent acquisitions and enter more markets around the world.
Although shein has been rumored to be listed on many occasions, it has not yet officially entered the capital market. As a company born on Chinese soil, Shein has been downplaying its "Chinese origins" in recent years. Not only did the company's headquarters move to Singapore, but founder Xu Yangtian was also rumored to have obtained Singapore permanent resident status.
Some analysts believe that Shein's downplaying of "Chinese origin" may be to pave the way for listing in the United States. However, Shein, who has become a super unicorn, still has many challenges to deal with. For example, infringement lawsuits, geopolitical risks, etc. may bring a lot of uncertainty to the company's future development.
The fifth largest unicorn in the world, lifting a 49.5 billion yuan
html On April 9, Hurun Research Institute released the latest "2024 Global Unicorn List", listing the global unicorns established after 2000. , unlisted companies valued at more than US$1 billion.In the list released by the Hurun Research Institute, the top five players include not only the Internet giant ByteDance, which has been at the top for many years, and Musk’s space exploration technology company Space Openai, which is in the midst of the artificial intelligence trend, and Ant Group, which has seen the largest decline in value, are also eye-catching. The company that follows the first four is equally eye-catching. The company
is the fast fashion e-commerce company Shein. This year, Shein ranks fifth in the overall list with a value of 460 billion yuan. If the statistical scope is further narrowed to China, Shein ranks among the top ten unicorns in China. It ranks third on the list, second only to ByteDance and Ant Group.
According to statistics from Hurun Research Institute, the value of Shein has not changed from the previous year, but there is still a certain gap between its value and ByteDance and Ant Group. Specifically, ByteDance's value increased by 142 billion yuan to 1.56 trillion yuan. Although Ant Group's value dropped by 284 billion yuan, its value of 570 billion yuan is still 110 billion yuan ahead of Shein.
It is worth mentioning that Shein can also be seen in the "2024 Hurun Global Rich List" released by the Hurun Research Institute in late March. Shein founder Xu Yangtian ranked 427th in the "2024 Hurun Global Rich List" with a wealth of 49.5 billion yuan, but his ranking fell 86 places compared with the previous year, and his wealth decreased by 500 million yuan compared with the previous year.
Although Xu Yangtian now has a fortune worth 49.5 billion yuan, he is very low-key. The outside world knows very little about the background of this mysterious rich man, and Xu Yangtian rarely accepts interviews from the outside world. In the character history of Baidu Encyclopedia, there are only a few lines about Xu Yangtian.
What is even more exaggerated is that an employee of Shein once mentioned to The Paper that some photos of Xu Yangtian on the Internet are wrong, but Xu Yangtian himself did not ask for changes, and even asked the company not to sort out his personal information. .
Even though it was previously rumored that he had obtained permanent resident status in Singapore, the low-key Xu Yangtian has not publicly appeared to respond to relevant rumors. In addition to acting very low-key, dressing simply and working hard, this is also the label given to Xu Yangtian by the outside world.
In fact, this appearance on the "2024 Hurun Global Rich List" is not the first time that Xu Yangtian's name has been included in the rich list. In the introduction to Xu Yangtian on Baidu Encyclopedia, the description of Xu Yangtian's rise to various rich lists is even longer than his personal experience. As early as December 2021, Xu Yangtian was selected into the "2021 Hurun U40 Young Entrepreneurs List". At that time, Xu Yangtian ranked third in the list.
In the following years, Xu Yangtian repeatedly appeared on rich lists including the "Forbes Global Billionaires List" and "Hurun Rich List". In addition, Xu Yangtian has been selected as one of China's 50 most influential business leaders in 2023 and Fortune China's 40 business elites under 40 years old.
The former "poor boy" turned around thanks to shein
Public information shows that Xu Yangtian, the founder of shein, was born in 1984 and is a native of Zibo, Shandong. According to some media reports, Xu Yangtian's original family was not considered wealthy. Coming from a modest family background, he started working part-time very early. However, Xu Yangtian, who failed to get a good hand at the beginning, used hard work and opportunities to stage a "salted fish turnaround" counterattack drama.
Xu Yangtian’s former partner Li Peng also mentioned in an interview with latepost that when he first met Xu Yangtian, he was “as lean as a monkey.” At that time, when Xu Yangtian talked about his poor background, he said that when he was a child, he ate steamed buns dipped in soy sauce, worked outside during his senior year of high school, and worked part-time in college.
Compared with many business tycoons who frequently go to Tsinghua, Peking University, or even prestigious overseas universities, Xu Yangtian’s academic background is not that outstanding. Baidu Encyclopedia states that Xu Yangtian graduated from Qingdao University of Science and Technology majoring in international trade, but there are also reports that Xu Yangtian's graduation school is labeled as Qingdao University of Science and Technology majoring in international trade.
After graduating from school in 2007, Xu Yangtian found a job in Nanjing engaged in search engine optimization. However, after only working on this job for about a year, Xu Yangtian decided to start his own business.
In 2008, Xu Yangtian, Wang Xiaohu, and Li Peng jointly established Nanjing Dianwei Information Technology Co., Ltd. Tianyancha shows that Xu Yangtian holds 45% of the company's shares, while Wang Xiaohu and Li Peng hold 45% and 10% of the company's shares respectively. However, the company was canceled in October 2016.
Before Nanjing Dianwei was deregistered, Xu Yangtian started his own cross-border e-commerce business. According to media reports, at first, Xu Yangtian's company mainly sold wedding dresses. In 2012, Xu Yangtian turned his attention to the broader women's clothing market. Relying on the independent website sheinside, it began to officially develop its fashion item business in overseas markets. Under the leadership of Xu Yangtian,
has been developing and growing with low prices, many categories, fast updates, and understanding of traffic operation. In 2014, shein laid a solid foundation and built its own supply chain center. In 2015, shein expanded its business scope from women's clothing to more categories. Since then, shein has continued to refine its operations and deepen its operations in major global markets to enhance its brand power. After years of development,
has expanded its overseas business footprint. According to foreign media citing four sources, Shein earned more than 2 billion U.S. dollars in profits in 2023, and its GMV was about 45 billion U.S. dollars. This means that the company's profits more than doubled year-on-year last year, and have far than its fast fashion rival H&M.
Since shein mainly focuses on overseas markets, many Chinese people may not know the name shein, but this does not affect shein becoming one of the most successful brands going overseas. In many media reports, Shein, together with Temu owned by Pinduoduo, AliExpress owned by Alibaba, and TikTok Shop owned by ByteDance, are known as the "Four Little Dragons" of Chinese e-commerce overseas.
In the second half of last year, Shein, which was on the rapid development train, also made several big moves. In August of that year, Shein acquired 1/3 of the equity of Sparc Group, an American clothing brand operator. It is reported that sparc group owns a number of clothing brands, including fast fashion women's clothing forever 21, outdoor brand nautica, mid-range men's clothing brand brook brothers, etc.
In October of the same year, Shein took action against one of the largest online fashion retailers in the UK.At that time, British fashion retail group Frasers announced that its well-known brand Missguided was sold to Shein, a global fashion and lifestyle online retailer. Shein will fully acquire the missguided brand and all its intellectual property rights.
In this regard, Shein stated that this acquisition not only further expands Shein’s fashion territory and brings more diversified fashion brands and products to global consumers, but also means that Shein’s flexible on-demand fashion continues to lead the development of the global fashion industry. Its industrial ecological partners are facing more opportunities.
downplays “Chinese origin” to pave the way for listing in the United States?
As a player who has been on the Hurun Global Unicorn List for many years, Shein has not yet entered the capital market, but news related to Shein's listing will appear in the market from time to time.
As early as May 2021, shein was rumored to be preparing to go public. In response, Shein said in a statement that it has no plans to conduct an IPO in the short term.
In February 2022, news came out again that shein had restarted its plan to go public in the United States. The news said that Shein has hired Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase to handle the IPO work.
In 2023, news that shein was preparing to go public came out many times in the market. In November last year, according to the Shanghai Securities News, Shein secretly went public in the United States with a target valuation of US$90 billion. It had invited investors to participate in the road show and had completed the submission of forms. However, regarding the listing rumors, Shein responded that the news was untrue.
It is worth noting that although shein mainly targets overseas markets, it is strictly speaking a company born in China, and it has also benefited from a lot of dividends from China's manufacturing industry during its development. In the "2024 Global Unicorn List" released this time, the region marked by Hurun Research Institute for Shein is also China.
However, the question of whether Shein can be regarded as a Chinese company has always been a topic of concern to many outsiders. As early as February 2022, foreign media reported that Shein may have changed the company's holding entity to a Singapore company, and Xu Yangtian, the founder, may have obtained Singapore permanent resident status.
At that time, on the workplace social software LinkedIn, Shein had changed the address of the company's headquarters to Singapore, and Shein was also increasing the recruitment of employees based in Singapore. Reuters also pointed out that the main body of Shein’s webpage and app is a Singaporean company called Roadget Business Pte. Ltd.
Regarding various speculations from the outside world, Shein stated that Shein is a cross-border e-commerce company. In order to better promote local business development, conveniently serve users, and meet local government regulatory requirements, Shein has a multi-center operation setup, and each center is positioned and functions have not changed. China is an important center for Shein. At the same time, with the goal of localization, Shein will also have centers in various core markets, such as the United States and Singapore.
At that time, Shein also stated that Xu Yangtian was still a Chinese citizen.
However, in the "2023 Hurun Global Self-Made U40 Rich List" released last year, Xu Yangtian's place of residence was shown as Singapore. For a time, the topic about Xu Yangtian’s nationality and identity once again aroused heated discussion.
Sky Eye Check shows that Xu Yangtian currently works for a total of 10 companies in China. Among them, 7 companies for which Xu Yangtian serves as the legal representative and 5 companies for which he serves as a senior executive are currently in a state of cancellation. Of the six companies in which Xu Yangtian holds shares, only Beijing Xishang Information Technology Co., Ltd. is still in existence.
Shein, which has not been in the capital market for a long time, is still facing many severe challenges. For example, during the development of the company, Shein was often involved in infringement lawsuits. Relevant data shows that in the past few years, Shein and its parent company have been named as defendants in at least 50 trademark or copyright infringement lawsuits in the United States.
According to incomplete statistics, Nike, Dex's UGG brand, Levi Strauss, fashion brand Stussy, Luxottica Group's Oakley sunglasses and online retailer Dolls Kill have all accused Shein of stealing their product design ideas.
On January 16 this year, Uniqlo’s parent company Fast Retailing Co., Ltd. announced on its official website that Uniqlo had initiated a lawsuit against three companies under Shein, accusing Shein of violating the Anti-Unfair Competition Law of the People’s Republic of China and should immediately stop selling counterfeit products. UNIQLO round mini shoulder bag product, and compensate the company for the losses it suffered as a result.
In the same month, according to information released by a California court, the American fashion brand for love&lemons also filed a lawsuit against Shein. In March, the American art store Cat Coven sued Shein for copyright infringement. It is reported that this is the third time Maoji has launched an infringement lawsuit against shein since 2019.
In addition to infringement lawsuits, geopolitical risks have also brought more uncertainty to shein’s future development. As players that focus on overseas markets, Shein, like TikTok, regards the United States as one of their important markets. However, looking at what TikTok is currently facing in the United States, the pressure TikTok is currently under is likely to befall Shein in the future.
In August last year, shortly after it was reported that Shein was preparing to be listed in the United States, the attorneys general of 16 states in the United States jointly sent a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requesting a review of Shein’s supply chain. Earlier, the U.S. government had launched an independent investigation into the issue of import tariffs on shein packets.
In November of the same year, when news of Shein's secret listing in the United States was reported, U.S. Representative Jennifer Wexton publicly stated that if Shein was to be listed in the United States, it should prove the source of its products to consumers. Another senator told the media that he would pay close attention to Shein's disclosure before it goes public. Some analysts at
believe that as a cross-border e-commerce platform, most of Shein's revenue comes from overseas, but Shein's supply chain system is relatively dependent on China. In order to become an "international" company more thoroughly, Shein has made many adjustments in recent years. For example, introducing a large number of international executives and accelerating the layout of the supply chain overseas. The real purpose of Shein's downplaying his "Chinese origin" may be to clear relevant obstacles for listing in the United States.
According to Shen Meng, director of Chanson Capital, Shein Company mainly targets the international e-commerce market, so better policies and business environment are more conducive to the long-term development of the company. However, according to current domestic laws, even if you relocate, your business will still be subject to supervision as long as it involves China.
Radar Finance will continue to pay attention to the subsequent development of shein.
In fact, this appearance on the "2024 Hurun Global Rich List" is not the first time that Xu Yangtian's name has been included in the rich list. In the introduction to Xu Yangtian on Baidu Encyclopedia, the description of Xu Yangtian's rise to various rich lists is even longer than his personal experience. As early as December 2021, Xu Yangtian was selected into the "2021 Hurun U40 Young Entrepreneurs List". At that time, Xu Yangtian ranked third in the list.
In the following years, Xu Yangtian repeatedly appeared on rich lists including the "Forbes Global Billionaires List" and "Hurun Rich List". In addition, Xu Yangtian has been selected as one of China's 50 most influential business leaders in 2023 and Fortune China's 40 business elites under 40 years old.
The former "poor boy" turned around thanks to shein
Public information shows that Xu Yangtian, the founder of shein, was born in 1984 and is a native of Zibo, Shandong. According to some media reports, Xu Yangtian's original family was not considered wealthy. Coming from a modest family background, he started working part-time very early. However, Xu Yangtian, who failed to get a good hand at the beginning, used hard work and opportunities to stage a "salted fish turnaround" counterattack drama.
Xu Yangtian’s former partner Li Peng also mentioned in an interview with latepost that when he first met Xu Yangtian, he was “as lean as a monkey.” At that time, when Xu Yangtian talked about his poor background, he said that when he was a child, he ate steamed buns dipped in soy sauce, worked outside during his senior year of high school, and worked part-time in college.
Compared with many business tycoons who frequently go to Tsinghua, Peking University, or even prestigious overseas universities, Xu Yangtian’s academic background is not that outstanding. Baidu Encyclopedia states that Xu Yangtian graduated from Qingdao University of Science and Technology majoring in international trade, but there are also reports that Xu Yangtian's graduation school is labeled as Qingdao University of Science and Technology majoring in international trade.
After graduating from school in 2007, Xu Yangtian found a job in Nanjing engaged in search engine optimization. However, after only working on this job for about a year, Xu Yangtian decided to start his own business.
In 2008, Xu Yangtian, Wang Xiaohu, and Li Peng jointly established Nanjing Dianwei Information Technology Co., Ltd. Tianyancha shows that Xu Yangtian holds 45% of the company's shares, while Wang Xiaohu and Li Peng hold 45% and 10% of the company's shares respectively. However, the company was canceled in October 2016.
Before Nanjing Dianwei was deregistered, Xu Yangtian started his own cross-border e-commerce business. According to media reports, at first, Xu Yangtian's company mainly sold wedding dresses. In 2012, Xu Yangtian turned his attention to the broader women's clothing market. Relying on the independent website sheinside, it began to officially develop its fashion item business in overseas markets. Under the leadership of Xu Yangtian,
has been developing and growing with low prices, many categories, fast updates, and understanding of traffic operation. In 2014, shein laid a solid foundation and built its own supply chain center. In 2015, shein expanded its business scope from women's clothing to more categories. Since then, shein has continued to refine its operations and deepen its operations in major global markets to enhance its brand power. After years of development,
has expanded its overseas business footprint. According to foreign media citing four sources, Shein earned more than 2 billion U.S. dollars in profits in 2023, and its GMV was about 45 billion U.S. dollars. This means that the company's profits more than doubled year-on-year last year, and have far than its fast fashion rival H&M.
Since shein mainly focuses on overseas markets, many Chinese people may not know the name shein, but this does not affect shein becoming one of the most successful brands going overseas. In many media reports, Shein, together with Temu owned by Pinduoduo, AliExpress owned by Alibaba, and TikTok Shop owned by ByteDance, are known as the "Four Little Dragons" of Chinese e-commerce overseas.
In the second half of last year, Shein, which was on the rapid development train, also made several big moves. In August of that year, Shein acquired 1/3 of the equity of Sparc Group, an American clothing brand operator. It is reported that sparc group owns a number of clothing brands, including fast fashion women's clothing forever 21, outdoor brand nautica, mid-range men's clothing brand brook brothers, etc.
In October of the same year, Shein took action against one of the largest online fashion retailers in the UK.At that time, British fashion retail group Frasers announced that its well-known brand Missguided was sold to Shein, a global fashion and lifestyle online retailer. Shein will fully acquire the missguided brand and all its intellectual property rights.
In this regard, Shein stated that this acquisition not only further expands Shein’s fashion territory and brings more diversified fashion brands and products to global consumers, but also means that Shein’s flexible on-demand fashion continues to lead the development of the global fashion industry. Its industrial ecological partners are facing more opportunities.
downplays “Chinese origin” to pave the way for listing in the United States?
As a player who has been on the Hurun Global Unicorn List for many years, Shein has not yet entered the capital market, but news related to Shein's listing will appear in the market from time to time.
As early as May 2021, shein was rumored to be preparing to go public. In response, Shein said in a statement that it has no plans to conduct an IPO in the short term.
In February 2022, news came out again that shein had restarted its plan to go public in the United States. The news said that Shein has hired Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase to handle the IPO work.
In 2023, news that shein was preparing to go public came out many times in the market. In November last year, according to the Shanghai Securities News, Shein secretly went public in the United States with a target valuation of US$90 billion. It had invited investors to participate in the road show and had completed the submission of forms. However, regarding the listing rumors, Shein responded that the news was untrue.
It is worth noting that although shein mainly targets overseas markets, it is strictly speaking a company born in China, and it has also benefited from a lot of dividends from China's manufacturing industry during its development. In the "2024 Global Unicorn List" released this time, the region marked by Hurun Research Institute for Shein is also China.
However, the question of whether Shein can be regarded as a Chinese company has always been a topic of concern to many outsiders. As early as February 2022, foreign media reported that Shein may have changed the company's holding entity to a Singapore company, and Xu Yangtian, the founder, may have obtained Singapore permanent resident status.
At that time, on the workplace social software LinkedIn, Shein had changed the address of the company's headquarters to Singapore, and Shein was also increasing the recruitment of employees based in Singapore. Reuters also pointed out that the main body of Shein’s webpage and app is a Singaporean company called Roadget Business Pte. Ltd.
Regarding various speculations from the outside world, Shein stated that Shein is a cross-border e-commerce company. In order to better promote local business development, conveniently serve users, and meet local government regulatory requirements, Shein has a multi-center operation setup, and each center is positioned and functions have not changed. China is an important center for Shein. At the same time, with the goal of localization, Shein will also have centers in various core markets, such as the United States and Singapore.
At that time, Shein also stated that Xu Yangtian was still a Chinese citizen.
However, in the "2023 Hurun Global Self-Made U40 Rich List" released last year, Xu Yangtian's place of residence was shown as Singapore. For a time, the topic about Xu Yangtian’s nationality and identity once again aroused heated discussion.
Sky Eye Check shows that Xu Yangtian currently works for a total of 10 companies in China. Among them, 7 companies for which Xu Yangtian serves as the legal representative and 5 companies for which he serves as a senior executive are currently in a state of cancellation. Of the six companies in which Xu Yangtian holds shares, only Beijing Xishang Information Technology Co., Ltd. is still in existence.
Shein, which has not been in the capital market for a long time, is still facing many severe challenges. For example, during the development of the company, Shein was often involved in infringement lawsuits. Relevant data shows that in the past few years, Shein and its parent company have been named as defendants in at least 50 trademark or copyright infringement lawsuits in the United States.
According to incomplete statistics, Nike, Dex's UGG brand, Levi Strauss, fashion brand Stussy, Luxottica Group's Oakley sunglasses and online retailer Dolls Kill have all accused Shein of stealing their product design ideas.
On January 16 this year, Uniqlo’s parent company Fast Retailing Co., Ltd. announced on its official website that Uniqlo had initiated a lawsuit against three companies under Shein, accusing Shein of violating the Anti-Unfair Competition Law of the People’s Republic of China and should immediately stop selling counterfeit products. UNIQLO round mini shoulder bag product, and compensate the company for the losses it suffered as a result.
In the same month, according to information released by a California court, the American fashion brand for love&lemons also filed a lawsuit against Shein. In March, the American art store Cat Coven sued Shein for copyright infringement. It is reported that this is the third time Maoji has launched an infringement lawsuit against shein since 2019.
In addition to infringement lawsuits, geopolitical risks have also brought more uncertainty to shein’s future development. As players that focus on overseas markets, Shein, like TikTok, regards the United States as one of their important markets. However, looking at what TikTok is currently facing in the United States, the pressure TikTok is currently under is likely to befall Shein in the future.
In August last year, shortly after it was reported that Shein was preparing to be listed in the United States, the attorneys general of 16 states in the United States jointly sent a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requesting a review of Shein’s supply chain. Earlier, the U.S. government had launched an independent investigation into the issue of import tariffs on shein packets.
In November of the same year, when news of Shein's secret listing in the United States was reported, U.S. Representative Jennifer Wexton publicly stated that if Shein was to be listed in the United States, it should prove the source of its products to consumers. Another senator told the media that he would pay close attention to Shein's disclosure before it goes public. Some analysts at
believe that as a cross-border e-commerce platform, most of Shein's revenue comes from overseas, but Shein's supply chain system is relatively dependent on China. In order to become an "international" company more thoroughly, Shein has made many adjustments in recent years. For example, introducing a large number of international executives and accelerating the layout of the supply chain overseas. The real purpose of Shein's downplaying his "Chinese origin" may be to clear relevant obstacles for listing in the United States.
According to Shen Meng, director of Chanson Capital, Shein Company mainly targets the international e-commerce market, so better policies and business environment are more conducive to the long-term development of the company. However, according to current domestic laws, even if you relocate, your business will still be subject to supervision as long as it involves China.
Radar Finance will continue to pay attention to the subsequent development of shein.
