Zhang Jindong & Family  張近東家族

Company: Suning Appliance Co., and other companies 蘇寧電器等

Sector: Retail

Shares: 31.67 percent in Suning Corp.

Stock code: 002024.SZ

Current wealth: 18.7 billion yuan (US$2.97 billion)

Losses: 9.8 billion yuan (US$1.56 billion)

Percentage lost: 34.4 percent

Zhang Jindong, chairman of China's leading consumer electronics retailer Suning Appliance Co., was ranked 10th among the 3000 richest Chinese families in July 2011. Yet even high-quality stocks like Suning could not escape last year's gloomy economy. Zhang had 9.8 billion yuan (US$1.56 billion) wiped from his total asset value of 28.5 billion yuan (US$4.5 billion) due to the drop in Suning's stock value.

Despite the sluggish stock market, Zhang remained ambitious about Suning's future. When its old rival Gome was struggling to recover from infighting, Suning has seized the opportunity for development. Zhang is focused on an online-offline business model embracing the models of Wal-Mart and Amazon.com. Suning E-Go, an all-encompassing B2C platform, was launched in January 2010, generating 2 billion yuan (US$317 million) in sales revenue in its first year.

With this platform in place, Suning aims to reap in 680 billion yuan (US$107.9 billion) in revenue by 2020, of which 300 billion yuan (US$47.62 billion) is from Suning E-go, and 350 billion yuan (US$55.56 billion) from its physical stores. Suning signed a cooperation agreement with IBM in November 2011, aiming to build Suning E-Go into the world's largest e-commerce platform.