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Here Come the Shens!
by Andrea La Paz-Heddy
Who are they? Look out Arnault and Walton families, the Shens are coming for you! Hammond.com Released the annual Hammond 500, the list of the richest people in the world, not including royalty and dictators. The most popular feature from Hammond Publications, Inc, the Hammond 500 features the richest 500 people in the world. The top five billionaires in the world are not a surprise, with Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk jockeying for position. The late Sam Walton’s children are separately three of the top ten richest people in the world.
Along with the Walton family, the Arnault family also made it’s fortune in retail. See their profiles, here (note: contains paywall). The Dumas and Wertheimer families specialize in luxury goods (more about this in the book, Coco Chanel and Hermès, Empires of Luxury). The Koch, Ambrani, and Al Saud families got their starts in resource extraction, especially oil, gas, and coal (see also: Are Koch, Abrani, and Manringer bad for the planet?). Boehringer, Von Baumbach families and Mars families got their start in selling products, pharmaceuticals and candies respectively (From Small Beginnings to Corporate Kingdoms). The Johnson family own Fidelity investments (read: The Families of Finance).
From seemingly out of nowhere have come the Shens. Shen International, also known as ShenInt, is the umbrella for all of the Shen family’s business ventures. After he was let go from his position as a professor of history, Shen Deyuan began selling dried fish to local stores. A year or two later he bought fishing boats, then expanded into shipping, then real estate. Shen Deyuan’s son-in-law, Shen Li, invested deeply into heavy industry, and diversified the Shen family portfolio to include properties in China, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
Shen Yue, the current guiding light of the Shen Family, has the Midas touch. As an angel investor, Shen Yue has made fortunes by transforming small ventures into household names. When asked for a quote about his success, the handsome and modest Shen Yue attributed his contribution to the Shen family fortune “as an extraordinary amount of luck.” Other business partners believe it is less luck and more to do with Shen Yue’s master’s degrees in finance and abstract math from Oxbridge. A close friend of Shen Yue, Hotchkiss Prize winner and statistician Wang Fang said, “Shen Yue plays with abstract maths that hurt my brain. Statistics is more concrete”.
The next Shen brother is the noted bon vivant and ladies’ man, Shen Liu. Often featured in style magazines such Bon Homme and tabloids such as Look Out!, he is a frequent target of paparazzi. Shen Liu is the founder and CEO of Shen Entertainment, known as ShenEnt. He has a particular genius for taking young talents and transforming them into international sensations such as the megastars K-12 and the noted singer and actress Riri. When he’s not enjoying the club scene, he competes in friendly matches with other world-class athletes. Don’t let the party-hearty image fool you—Shen Liu also has an MBA and master’s degree in Sports Science from the elite Southern California Polytechnic University.
In comparison to the his older brothers, Shen Yuan maintains a low public profile. Unlike the financier Shen Yue and the entertainment mogul Shen Liu, Shen Yuan is only seen at fashion events and gallery openings with his husband, the international supermodel Shen Jiu (no relation). Shen Jiu is lead model of fashion house Collage, and new face of DeLuxe cosmetics.
Like his brothers Shen Yue and Shen Liu, Shen Yuan also appears to have a gift in finding potential money-makers. Where Shen Yue invests and develops new businesses, Shen Liu grooms and trains performers, Shen Yuan specializes in fine art and design. He and Shen Jiu founded the company Shen2 as an incubator for fine artists, designers, and craftspeople. Shen2 provides technical and financial support to potential artist-entrepreneurs. The young doctorate of Classical Chinese and Art History described his method of vetting potential protegés as “Shen Jiu and I look at randomized portfolios, swap, and randomize again. Anything that elicits an emotional response from the both of us gets further consideration. Then we score the portfolios and decide which creatives to support. We are always looking for more artists and designers to sponsor.”
So there it is, everyone! A brief guide to the current generation of the Shen Family! Is there a next generation of Shens in the works?