Wolves' owners Fosun International see revenue rocket as profits hit £500m
Wolves' Chinese owners Fosun International have racked up a strong first half of the year, with profits soaring to around £500 million.
The latest figures are for the six months to the end of June so there is no mention of the Wolves takeover in July.
But they do lay bare the breadth of the Hong Kong-listed conglomerate, from insurance, banking, media investments and movies to pharmaceuticals, property development and mining.
Fosun's business operations brought in around £3.7bn over the six months, with profits rising around £90m to £502m.
The group has previously said it sees its £30m acquisition of Wolves as a long term investment, tied to the increasing popularity of the sport in China.
Wolves have already attracted company chairman Guo Guangchang to see the team in action.
Profits were £4.4bn Renminbi, or £502m – up nearly £90m on last year. The value of the group's assets has risen by 7.4 per cent over the first half of the year to around £50bn.
Alongside its massive insurance businesses in China, Portugal and the USA, which account for nearly half of its income, its Fosun Pharma healthcare arm has just bought Indian drug maker Gland Pharma, which has a big stake in the US market, for nearly £1bn.
Fosun, which has stakes in Thomas Cook, Club Med, pram company Silver Cross, acrobatic troupe Cirque du Soleil, also owns movie maker Studio 8, which just just completed Ang Lee's latest film, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, with partners Columbia Tristar.
It is also close to completing a £1bn theme resort on China's Hainan Island.
Like many growing Chinese companies, Fosun has built up a mountain of debt as it has expanded, valued at around £13 billion, and it says it plans to work on this debt, improving it to investment grade.
At the same time the group says it is targeting a fresh round of growth in markets such as Brazil, Russia and India.
Explaining how it operates, Fosun said: "The group adheres to the concept of value investment and follows the model of 'combining China's growth momentum with global resources' to invest in a series of enterprises benefiting from the growth momentum of China in both domestic and global markets."
