Zhang Lei: The Man Behind Tencent Jingdong

41 years old

Yale University is a household word.

In 2010, he announced the donation of $8 million 888 thousand and 888 to Yale School ofManagement, the largest alumni donation ever received by the business school.

But out of Yale University, because of his low profile style of work, Zhang Lei is still a stranger to the public.

However, he is in charge of a fund of 13 billion US dollars (about 80 billion yuan) in China, HillhouseCapital, which mainly invests in Internet entrepreneurs and start-ups in China.

The projects invested by high leverage capital include Tencent, Jingdong, where to go, blue moon, and fourth ring medicine.

Alpine capital Zhang Lei

Zhang Lei, chairman of high school Capital Management Co., Ltd.

The name of high Lane capital comes from a street in New Haven, which is only one street away from the original location of the Yale investment fund office.

This office is in charge of Yale University's total fund of 20 billion US dollars. During this internship, Zhang Lei opened his own financial career.

Since its establishment in 2005, it has provided us $30 million from the Yale University Investment Fund Office (YaleEndowment) to the current US $13 billion asset management scale. Zhang Lei led Hillhouse CapitalManagement as one of the largest and best performing funds in Asia, rooted in China and focusing on the world. He has also become a successful representative of Chinese in the global investment community.

But in Zhang Lei's view, these are just results. What he values more is the idea and way of doing things.

"I want to be a super long term partner of an enterprise. This is my belief and belief."

Therefore, he has been "seeking a firm practitioner with a great view of pattern".

Super long investors behind Liu Qiangdong

Insisting on values, let Zhang Lei choose to build high allocating capital into the unique EvergreenFund of Asia, which is the key to his long term LP trust, including Yale University endowment fund.

The famous companies such as Jingdong mall, big RFA, blue moon, and where to go are just insisting on a little return.

In 2010, Liu Qiangdong was said to have only $75 million in financing at that time, but Zhang Lei told Liu Qiangdong: "this business will not let me invest $300 million, or I will not invest a penny, because the business itself is a business that needs to burn money, and not enough money to see the core competitiveness in the logistics and supply chain system".

It was one of the largest single investment cases in the domestic Internet industry at that time, and Gao Ling was once laughed at by many people.

But Zhang Lei knows very well what kind of business model is most suitable for Jingdong, because Jingdong is just like Amazon in his eyes, and Bezos's regret is precisely that.

At the time of establishment, the United States already had such a logistics giant like UPS, so he lost the opportunity to supply chain integration. In China, Jingdong did not have such an opponent, so it faced better historical opportunities.

This is probably why Gao Ling is willing to contribute to help Jingdong build its own logistics platform.

To this day, looking back, the investment in this hilin's big investment did make Jingdong quickly establish the unshaken leading edge in the field of B2C e-commerce in a very short time, and even to a certain extent deterred the new capital to compete in this field, and strengthened Jingdong's absolute leadership.

Now the investment is worth more than 4 billion dollars.

It is reported that second weeks after high allocations, Zhang Lei took Liu Qiangdong to the United States.

Liu Qiangdong stayed at WAL-MART headquarters for four or five days to fully understand the logistics network and storage system of WAL-MART, and soon launched the supply chain reengineering and logistics channel optimization in Jingdong.

Zhang Lei also arranges the management of Jingdong and the top management team of another excellent offline retail company, high run investment, to conduct cross boundary experience exchange throughout the day to help Jingdong team learn the offline retail management knowledge.

In operation, Gao Ling also helped Jingdong introduce a lot of experienced senior managers in Internet operation and marketing.

Some investors in the late stage also learned that high allocations played a role.

As Zhang Lei mentioned in a talk, Gao Ling is very concerned about the "neighbor risk". I hope that the investors who are introduced later in the Jingdong can also be like high allocations, and have no short-term exit pressure. They can really look to the future and support the long-term development of the company.

And the latest high value-added services should be driven by Tencent two months ago.

In Zhang Lei's words, what Gao Ling does every day is to figure out how to help investment companies dig deeper into the moat.

Because the high allocations are the evergreen fund mode, they can provide the longest line capital, so they are fully capable of supporting a company's strategic development in ten, twenty, or even thirty years.

This is quite different from the pressure on many investment funds to exit at a certain point or to require the company to make profits in the next quarter.

For example, after investing in the blue moon, Gao Ling recommended that it invest huge sums of money to educate consumers to change the way of laundry. As a result, the original profitable company turned into a loss making enterprise, but the effect was obvious for a long time. After three years, the blue moon turned into the industry leader of Chinese laundry detergent.

Such a cooperative relationship is not so much a relationship between an investor and an investment enterprise as a long-term entrepreneurial partnership.

Zhang Lei said: the core of the concept of high altitude investment is to find a firm practitioner with a great view of pattern.

The development of entrepreneurial entrepreneurs' great view of structure can not be separated from the guidance of investors who are longing to accompany them for a long time. They can help entrepreneurs cultivate long-term mentality and promote them to create more value for society, not only considering how much money they earn, but such investors are worth our respect and imitation.

The success of Jingdong is, in a sense, the beneficiary of long-term investment concepts such as high allocations.

Although it can not be said that each industry is suitable for such a "high wall" (the best business model and widening of moat), "extensive grain" (big investment and active introduction of talent), and "slow king" (not paying attention to short-term profits and value creation), I am glad to see more intelligent super long investors like high Ling to support and help Liu Qiangdong's persistent and dream disruptive entrepreneurs.

But persistence is not rigid.

Although the key investment areas include the Internet and the media, consumption and retail, medical health, energy and advanced manufacturing, Zhang Lei said that the essence of high allocations is a "investing in change" organization. In the dialogue, he has repeatedly talked about "the only permanent change in the world".

So he feels lucky to be able to live in this era of innovation, and to help those entrepreneurs who dare to embrace change to realize their dreams.

Henan's top entrance exam to Renmin University of China

Zhang Lei was born in Yicheng District, Zhumadian City, Henan Province in 1972. He lived in the city of Fu Qiang road. His family was in good condition. His father was a cadre of the Municipal Bureau of foreign trade.

There are quite a lot of books in the family. Zhang Lei often brings books to his class to lend to his classmates.

Good people are good at studying. On weekends, students often go to Zhangjia. Zhang Lei's mother often steamed meat steamed stuffed bun to her classmates.

Zhang Lei likes to play football, pass and shoot well, and often applaud his classmates.

In the eyes of high school teachers, Zhang Lei has strong organizational skills, good oral expression ability, and is good at reading and studying widely. In high school, Das Kapital has studied two times.

Perhaps because of these qualifications, Zhang Lei has been a squad leader since the second year of high school until he graduated from high school.

In fact, Zhang Lei entered the people's University of international finance in 1989 as a champion scholar. He also became a student head teacher with good comprehensive quality.

In 1998, Zhang Lei successfully applied to Yale University Graduate School of management.

Yale meets the master of fate change: Western institutions invest in Godfather David Svenson

In 1999, Zhang Lei, who studied at Yale SchoolofManagement, never let any chance of work study.

From the economics assistants of undergraduate students to Chinese chatting, they are welcome.

A chance to visit a humble old building in Vitoria and interview with Yale University's investment office, did not want to be fortunate enough to follow Mr. DavidSewensen, the godfather of investment in western institutions.

Stevenson is a prominent figure in the investment industry. He is also the main brain of the endowment fund of Yale University. In 1983, he left Wall Street and returned to Yale, earning only a million dollars a year (for Wall Street top people, this is a few weeks' salary). Why did he ask himself for such a little money to return to Yale?

He made the Yale endowment fund the best donor in the world.

Zhang Lei and mentor David David Vincent

Swenson's reputation and prestige can basically be named with Soros, Buffett and others, because he belongs to institutional investment, and the mass media is not much exposure to him. But for venture capital, hedge fund, he is God. He holds billions of dollars in his hands. He has a lot of power for whoever doesn't give it to anyone.

The global private equity fund (PE) industry authority Research Institute PEI (PrivateEquityInternational) issued the "2001-2011 ten year summary report", and selected 100 people who have a historic significance to the PE industry in the world.

The first is the former Federal Reserve governor Alan Greenspan. The second place is David Shi Wensen, chief investment officer of Yale University fund.

"Yale School of management has changed my whole life. This is no exaggeration.

I have learned a lot here, not only in finance or entrepreneurship, but also in the spirit of giving.

Zhang Lei said.

In the past 9 years, Zhang Lei and Gao Ling capital have made considerable progress.

The total assets currently operating have reached US $13 billion.

It has become one of the largest private equity funds in China.

High allocations capital has the performance that others can only admire. Since its inception, the annual compound return rate has been as high as 52%.

Zhang Lei regards himself as the product of the combination of eastern and Western cultures.

His investment philosophy can be summarized as the combination of Stevenson's theory and Chinese Buddhist Taoist sage doctrine.

Zhang Lei thought that we should not deliberately pursue too many opportunities, just like the ancients said: "weak water three thousand, a bucket is enough."

In the eyes of the onlookers, Zhang Lei resembles Buffett (WarrenBuffett) - the investor who buys and holds stocks for a long time.

(the two have had lunch together.

What Zhang Lei is proud of is that most investors in high level capital are Yale and other universities' endowment funds.

He himself is the Yale Asian Development Council (YaleAsia De).