Wolves' owner Fosun sees half-year profits soar to £800m
Wolves' wealthy Chinese owners are now even wealthier after unveiling record half-year profits of nearly £800 million.
And Fosun has hailed the club's success on the pitch and its link-ups with a number of other businesses across the group.
The Fosun conglomerate, which spans insurance and finance, medicine, movie-making, holiday resorts, technology and engineering businesses, took in revenues of £5 billion over the first six months of this year – 20 per cent up on the same period a year ago.
And that generated a 17 per cent spike in profits, to £792.4 million.
Wolverhampton Wanderers, bought by the group for £30 million two years ago, is just a tiny part of a vast, sprawling, empire that straddles the world. But the club's recent successes have seen it warrant its first ever mention in a Fosun company report.
The report celebrated the club winning the Championship in May and its promotion to the Premier League.
In addition, "Since Fosun’s investment, Wolves has successfully collaborated with many of the group’s other consumer facing products, including Tsingtao Brewery, Club Med and Thomas Cook on marketing and sales strategy worldwide."
Fosun, founded in 1992 by current chairman Guo Guangchang and four partners, splits its operations across divisions called Health, Wealth and Happiness and has seen profits rise across all three this year as it continued on the takeover trail, acquiring a string of new businesses.
Like most giant Chinese businesses, Fosun has a high level of debt but saw its credit rating upgrading by the Moody's agency in January.
Major purchases so far this year including French food firm St Hubert, fashion brands Lanvin and Wolford and a major stake in China's famous Tsingtao Brewery as well as Baihe Jiayun, a Chinese matchmaking-to-wedding business.
It also opened its Atlantis Sanya holiday resort in China while its Studio 8 movie company has just released Alpha, a story about an Ice Age boy who befriends a wolf, to positive reviews.
The half-year report also revealed that the Fosun group's total assets had increased in value by 5.7 per cent, to £65.2 billion.
