Evergrande Jumps into Water Biz with RMB5.7B in Orders

Not content with being China’s second largest real estate developer or winning the AFC Champions League soccer crown, Guangzhou-based Evergrande Group announced orders worth RMB 5.7 billion ($940 million) for its new bottled water brand, Evergrande Spring over the weekend.

At a ceremony in the city of Qingyuan in Guangdong, the company’s chairman, Xu Jiayin announced plans to sell RMB 10 billion of bottled water this year, and reach revenues of RMB 30 billion from the new business line by 2016.

Xu, who is also known by his Hui Ka Yan in his native Cantonese dialect, is estimated by Forbes to have a personal net worth of US$5.4 billion, and ranked as the 13th wealthiest person on the magazine’s most recent China Rich List.

In addition to its new bottled water venture, Evergrande announced in December last year that it would soon be developing private hospitals in China under a cooperation agreement with Harvard University.

The joint venture with Harvard coincided with Evergrande endowing a number of new facilities at the US university, including the creation of the Evergrande Center for Immunologic Diseases at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

In November last year, the company’s Guangzhou Evergrande football club became the first Chinese winners of the AFC Champions League much to the delight of China’s long-suffering soccer fans.