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text |"chinese entrepreneur" reporter deng shuanglin

edit|yao yun

header image source｜visual china

the 60-year-old cai chongxin has another identity: french vineyard owner.

according to bloomberg, tsai chongxin recently acquired a vineyard in burgundy in partnership with others, and the partners here include oliver weisberg, ceo of blue pool capital. the vineyard purchased by tsai chongxin is located in the core production area of ​​burgundy. this production area is favored by many billionaires, including bernard arnault, the founder of lvmh group and luxury goods tycoon, as well as bouygues, dassault, and the perondo, pinot and rothschild families have invested in vineyards here.

in 2019, after tsai chongxin relieved himself of the heavy responsibility of alibaba's strategic investment department, he began to pay for his hobbies. as a huge basketball fan, tsai chongxin purchased the nets in batches with a total transaction value of more than 3 billion us dollars, becoming the first chinese owner of an nba team. just like when he acquired the nets, tsai chongxin's investment in the vineyard this time may also be out of hobby.

it is reported that tsai is an avid wine collector. previously, tsai and weisberg were the producers of marie-ange gorbanevsky's 2019 documentary film "the soul of wine"; 2020 in 2016, he also gave away branded wine to enthusiastic nets fans.

but,tsai chongxin, who has a vc background, has always been good at turning hobbies into businesses that double profits.in june this year, the koch family acquired a 15% stake in bse global, the parent company of the brooklyn nets, at a valuation of us$5.8 billion (approximately rmb 42.1 billion), and tsai chongxin pocketed us$688 million (approximately rmb 5 billion). . after the investment is completed, the total valuation of the brooklyn nets and new york liberty will break the nba's historical record and become one of the highest valuations in the history of north american professional sports.

the vineyard property acquired by tsai chongxin also contains opportunities for value growth. this plot is located in the core region of burgundy. although it does not directly produce red wine, relevant data shows that the average price of vineyards in the côte d'or of burgundy jumped 11% in the past year, reaching 983,800 euros per hectare.

tsai chongxin goes the way of jack ma

before tsai chongxin, jack ma also had great interest in investing in wineries.

six years ago, jack ma revealed one of his plans for retirement at the davos forum:"i might go make wine."in fact, as early as 2016, jack ma bought the red wine industry in france. he first bought the chateau de sours vineyard in bordeaux, and within half a year, he bought the gray winery on the right bank of bordeaux. chateau perret and chateau perret in the north.

source: visual china

at that time, there was a wave of winery purchases in china. celebrities such as huang xiaoming, shi yuzhu, and carina lau, as well as some companies such as maotai and hebei xinda steel, all went to france to purchase wineries.

according to statistics, chinese buyers set a record for investing in wineries in france at that time. there were more than 300 wineries for sale in bordeaux every year, and chinese buyers accounted for more than 150 of them.

but now, these wineries have become "hot potatoes." according to reports from wine industry experts, 1/3 of the 150 chinese-owned french wineries have been abandoned and 1/3 are for sale. in other words, when mainland wealthy people and celebrities gathered together to buy wineries, very few made money, and most of them were lost.

large areas of chinese-funded french wineries are concentrated and abandoned. in addition to factors such as overcapacity and imbalance of market supply and demand, there are also reasons such as too long return cycles and poor management. it is understood that the realization cycle of the winery business usually takes more than 10 years to generate positive revenue, and the management of the winery also requires extremely high professionalism, and the investment in later operations is more than the money spent to purchase the winery.

in recent years, there has been little news of wealthy chinese buying wineries.

although collecting wine is one of tsai chongxin's hobbies, tsai chongxin, who has extremely vicious business vision, almost never engages in "loss-making business." 23 years ago, tsai chongxin first met jack ma in the early days of his business. at that time, alibaba had not even registered a company, and more than 20 people were working on the ground floor of a residential house in lakeside garden. however, tsai chongxin almost immediately decided to quit his job in hong kong. for a high-paying job, join alibaba.

facts have proved that tsai chongxin made the right bet.

tsai chongxin spent more than 3 billion us dollars to acquire the nets, and was once not favored by the outside world.after the nets adopted the surname "tsai", they were always a little short of success. in three seasons, they were never able to hit the championship. however, the nets' commercial value and brand influence have been rising all the time because the nba league may reach an 11-year broadcast contract of up to us$76 billion with television broadcast agencies in the future. tsai chongxin will undoubtedly get a huge return by selling part of the nets' equity when the nets' valuation is rising.

tsai chongxin's joining the consortium to invest in vineyards is not exactly the same as jack ma's path back then.it is understood that the french vineyard that tsai chongxin’s consortium invested in this time is located in gevrey-chambertin in the côte de nuits region, known as the champs elysées in burgundy. many of the region's wines receive the highest "grand cru" designation and can sell for hundreds of dollars or more per bottle.

although tsai chongxin bought vineyard property in the core area of ​​burgundy this time, the industry does not produce its own wine. land registration data shows that a plot of land in the region was sold for about 18 million euros in 2021; in the past year, the average price of vineyards in burgundy's côte d'or jumped 11% to 983,800 euros per hectare.

compared with wine, perhaps this piece of golden land is what tsai chongxin is really interested in.

more than half go to medical treatment

tsai chongxin is regarded as an idol by countless vc and pe practitioners. in addition to his status as the current chairman of the board of directors of alibaba, the series of investment territories he has expanded through blue pool capital have also attracted special attention in the industry.

according to the "bloomberg billionaires index", tsai chongxin's latest net worth is approximately us$6.9 billion (approximately 49 billion yuan), partly from his 1.4% stake in alibaba, and through bluepool capital, tsai chongxin has diversified its wealth.

in 2015, tsai chongxin and jack ma jointly established the family office bluepool capital, headquartered in hong kong, china, with the purpose of managing the huge wealth brought by alibaba's ipo. bluepool capital invests in diversified asset classes, mainly listed companies, private equity, hedge funds, etc., investing in medical health, finance, sports, yuanverse, blockchain and other fields. the asset scale in 2022 has exceeded 500 billion us dollars (approximately 350 billion yuan).

in addition to investing in many hedge funds, in the field of private equity investment, bluepool capital made 10 investments in succession from 2016 to 2018, including hualing pharmaceuticals, tengsheng biopharmaceuticals, innovative drug research and development company fogpharma, and rental e-commerce company rent the runway and other projects, more than half of which are invested in medical health.

some investment projects of bluepool capital

data source: qichacha and online public information tabulation: deng shuanglin

the latest fundraising may foretell the next direction of blue pool capital - according to bloomberg, blue pool capital's latest fund has raised us$500 million (approximately rmb 3.5 billion), and the backers behind the fund it is tsai chongxin.

different from the previous family office operating model, the latest fund will represent bluepool capital’s new long-term strategy: establishing an asset management business open to external customers, with a focus on investing in hedge funds and private credit funds.

in addition, it was reported at the beginning of this year that alibaba’s current chairman tsai chongxin purchased us$150 million in alibaba shares through his family investment platform bluepool capital management.

on august 28, after alibaba completed its dual primary listing in hong kong, the hong kong stock exchange disclosed that as of august 28, alibaba co-founder and chairman joe tsai held 276.75 million shares of the company, accounting for approximately 1.44%. according to previous disclosures, as of may 20, tsai chongxin held 275.3 million shares of alibaba stock. in the past four months, tsai chongxin has increased his holdings of alibaba shares by approximately 1.45 million shares.

references:

"nearly 1/3 is abandoned and 1/3 is for sale. have chinese-funded french wineries turned into "hot potatoes"? 》, wine industry expert

"initiated by tsai chongxin, bluepool capital raises 3.5 billion", investment community