Taiwan ‘King of Instant Noodles’ Plans Expansion (Update 1)
From Bloomberg, Taiwan ‘King of Instant Noodles’ Plans Expansion (Update 1)
Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) — Taiwanese billionaire Wei Ing-chou, whose “Master Kong” brand built Tingyi (Cayman Islands) Holding Corp. into the world’s largest producer of instant noodles, said he may buy mainland food companies and expand his real-estate holdings before retiring in four years.
Tingyi may target companies that produce beverages and baked goods in China, and its largest shareholder may buy and manage office property in Taipei and Shanghai, Wei said yesterday during an interview at company headquarters in Tianjin in eastern China.
“In this world there’s no brighter place than China,” Wei said. “We won’t give this place up. The pursuing of other markets will be for my sons to do.”
[...] Wei Ing-chou started transforming Tingyi from an oil and grease company founded by his parents in 1958 into China’s biggest maker of packaged foods in the early 1990s, when he says he foresaw growing demand for fast meals as more Chinese moved from the countryside to the cities for factory work. He opened his first noodle factory in Tianjin in 1992.
Sales of “Master Kong” surged 500-fold since production began, helping make Wei Taiwan’s fifth-richest man with an estimated wealth of $3.2 billion, Forbes Magazine reported in July. Tingyi sold 15 billion yuan ($2.2 billion) of instant noodles last year, compared with 30 million yuan in 1992.
The company also makes tea, mineral water and juiced drinks, and sells bakery products including sandwich crackers.
[...] Tingyi, which began producing beverages in 1996, also had a 48.7 percent share of the nation’s ready-to-drink tea market and 24.1 percent of its bottled water market, the company said, citing AC Nielsen.
Tingyi’s business in China is growing as ties between Taiwan and the mainland improve to their warmest since a civil war six decades ago, with President Ma Ying-jeou abandoning his predecessor’s pro-independence stance upon taking office in May 2008. China regards Taiwan as part of its territory.
Taiwanese companies invested an estimated $150 billion in China since 1979, according to the island’s Mainland Affairs Council. [...]
Read full story at Bloomberg, Taiwan ‘King of Instant Noodles’ Plans Expansion (Update 1)
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