It was hot and humid outside of the Shangri La Hotel in Shenzhen last night. The smog-choked air made every breath difficult. Crowds of migrant workers filled the sidewalks while cars zipped up and down the streets urgently.
My kids and I were on our way to an Italian restaurant for dinner. After one full week of eating nothing but Chinese food, my son Sean wanted some good old-fashioned spaghetti carbonara, and my local contacts in Shenzhen had told me about an obscure little Italian restaurant hidden near our hotel.
Despite the unpleasant conditions outside, there was a chaotic energy in the air. I wasn't the only one who could feel it--even the kids sensed the elevated energy buzzing about everywhere. All of the action, growth and ambition were easy to see. It's obvious that the people of Shenzhen want to get rich and are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that goal.
If capitalism has a new frontier--a Wild West in the far East--Shenzhen would be it. Over the past 20 years, the former sleepy fishing village across the river from Hong Kong has became the greatest boomtown ever known to mankind. The city had less than 100,000 people about 25 years ago, but today it has a population close to 7 million, or nearly twice that of Chicago. The city also has a unique demographic structure compared with other major international cities--the average resident's age is only 29, and women outnumber men, which is a rarity in China.
Shenzhen got its big break in the early 1990s when China's former leader Deng Xiao-ping made a historic visit to the then-fishing village and designated the city as a special economic zone. The special economic zone status of Shenzhen gave the city's investors special tax breaks, and soon foreign investors from Hong Kong and Taiwan flocked to the zone in droves. Shenzhen has become an important economic center for China, and today it boasts the highest per capita GDP of all major cities in the country.
Yesterday, our China Investment Tour group visited Shenzhen-based China Merchant Securities, one of the top stock brokerage firms in Mainland China. We were treated to a presentation by the brokerage house's very bright research director, John Ho--an MBA from USC's Marshall School of Business and a former portfolio manager at Dutch financial giant ING Group.
John gave up a cushy job at ING and took a pay cut to join China Merchant Securities. A few years ago, it was almost unthinkable for someone to leave a major international financial institution to work for a local Mainland Chinese brokerage house. But today, with China's economic emergence and massive stock market boom, senior managers at top Chinese brokerage firms (like John) now have unprecedented opportunities to build wealth.
We learned a lot from John's presentation, such as the current high earnings growth rate of many A-share companies, the incredible run-up in Chinese brokerage stocks, and John's outlook on the global economy. I'm looking forward to sharing all of the details of our visit with John in the next issue of China Strategy, which I'm working on right now. I'll also tell you about our group's trip to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and our visit to the headquarters of Mindray (NYSE: MR). It's been a very productive and informative trip so far, and I can't wait to share my findings with you, so stay tuned!