--- title: A Former Delivery Guy Is Now One of China's Richest Billionaires description: Wang Wei recently became China's third-richest man, after his company, SF Express — what most call "the Fed-Ex of China" — went public. authors: - name: Rob Wile url: https://money.com/author/rob-wile/ at_money_since: 2017 articles: 191 covers: - Business - Career Advice - Economy and Politics - Education - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Personal Finance - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://x.com/rjwile former_staff: true published: '2017-03-15T18:45:47.000Z' modified: '2019-05-14T15:11:26.000Z' section: Business tags: - China - Entrepreneurs - rich - Wealth word_count: 358 canonical: https://money.com/wang-wei-delivery-man-richest-billionaire-china-ef-express/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Wang Wei, Chairman of SF Express, looks on during a ceremony for the company's listing at Shenzhen Stock Exchange on February 24, 2017 in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province of China.](https://img.money.com/2017/03/170315-wang-wei-sf-express-billionaire.jpg) *Wang Wei, chairman of SF Express.* Who says a man with a van can't dream big? A quarter-century ago, Wang Wei was just a 20-something guy making deliveries out of his car in the back alleys of Hong Kong. This month, Wang [became China's third-richest man](http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/02/rags-to-riches-delivery-man-now-chinas-third-richest-billionaire.html), after his company, SF Express (the subsidiary of SF Holdings) — what most call "the Fed-Ex of China" — went public. [*Forbes*](https://www.forbes.com/profile/wang-wei/) estimates that Wang is worth $23 billion. “When SF started delivering packages in the 1990s, it was still an illegal business called ‘black delivery,'” Wang told the official *People’s Daily* in 2011, in the only interview he has ever given according to the [South China Morning Post.](http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2075831/six-men-and-van-400000-staff-and-fleet-35-aircraft-making-sf) It's unclear how much of a disadvantage Wang ACTUALLY had: He has professed poverty, saying that, “My parents were university professors in the mainland but their academic records were not recognized when we moved to Hong Kong when I was little. So we started from scratch,” he said. However, it's known that his father was an interpreter for the Chinese air force, and, [by one account](https://qz.com/921749/sf-express-founder-wang-wei-started-off-lugging-suitcases-and-now-presides-over-an-army-of-80000-couriers-and-is-one-of-chinas-richest-billionaires/), spotted Wang $20,000 to help create his business. In any event, Wang saw an opportunity to shuttle packages between the still-British-ruled Hong Kong and Shenzhen, which was being set up as one of China's "special economic zones." His big break, according to the [*Hong Kong Economic Times*](http://china.hket.com/article/1679442/%E3%80%8C%E6%B0%B4%E8%B2%A8%E4%BD%AC%E3%80%8D%E8%AE%8A%E5%AF%8C%E8%B1%AA%20%E7%8E%8B%E8%A1%9B%E5%A6%82%E4%BD%95%E6%94%B9%E8%AE%8A%E5%91%BD%E9%81%8B%EF%BC%9F), came during the SARS outbreak in 2003. The commercial airline industry had crashed, but Wang managed to procure a license to run charter flights to keep deliveries flowing. By then, the delivery business had started to become a crowded space — and remains so to this day — but this move apparently established SF Express as the most reliable delivery service in China. Today, SF's network covers 200 countries (with more than 15,000 vehicles), [CNBC reported](http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/02/rags-to-riches-delivery-man-now-chinas-third-richest-billionaire.html), largely thanks to the success of Alibaba, the "Amazon of China." “Not only the past decade, but the next few years will also be a golden age for Chinese couriers’ development,” John Song, a Shanghai-based director of the logistics and transportation practice in China at consultancy Deloitte, [told Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-28/a-delivery-man-just-became-one-of-the-richest-people-in-china). “There is huge potential in the development of these Chinese couriers.” ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/wang-wei-delivery-man-richest-billionaire-china-ef-express/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Business", "item": "https://money.com/business/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Entrepreneurship", "item": "https://money.com/entrepreneurship/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "A Former Delivery Guy Is Now One of China's Richest Billionaires" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/wang-wei-delivery-man-richest-billionaire-china-ef-express/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/wang-wei-delivery-man-richest-billionaire-china-ef-express/", "name": "A Former Delivery Guy Is Now One of China's Richest Billionaires", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2017-03-15T18:45:47.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/wang-wei-delivery-man-richest-billionaire-china-ef-express/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/wang-wei-delivery-man-richest-billionaire-china-ef-express/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2019-05-14T15:11:26.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "A Former Delivery Guy Is Now One of China's Richest Billionaires", "articleSection": "Business", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2017/03/170315-wang-wei-sf-express-billionaire.jpg", "width": 2100, "height": 1400, "caption": "170315-wang-wei-sf-express-billionaire" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Rob Wile", "url": "https://money.com/author/rob-wile/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/rob-wile/#author", "sameAs": [ "https://x.com/rjwile" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2017-03-15T18:45:47.000Z", "description": "Wang Wei recently became China's third-richest man, after his company, SF Express — what most call \"the Fed-Ex of China\" — went public.", "abstract": "Wang Wei recently became China's third-richest man, after his company, SF Express — what most call \"the Fed-Ex of China\" — went public.", "@id": "https://money.com/wang-wei-delivery-man-richest-billionaire-china-ef-express/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2019-05-14T15:11:26.000Z", "wordCount": 358, "keywords": [ "China", "Entrepreneurs", "rich", "Wealth" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Business", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Entrepreneurship", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrepreneurship" ] } ] } ] } ```