Financial Review
March 21, 1997
March 21, 1997
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His reputation spread through his home town of Wenzbou in the southern coastal province of Zhejiang, which is now famous as a hothouse for Chinese entrepreneurs. He realized that opportunity was knocking.
When the lotion had worked on 101 patients, he sold one of three houses he had inherited and invested the money in bottling what he now labelled "101."
Journalist Mr. Ding Xin Min of the national Worker's Daily newspaper arrived at the factory, fascinated not least because of his own fast-growing baldness.
Mr. Zhao said: "I told the reporter to tell his readers if I cured him - or if I didn't." Naturally, 101 worked another miracle cure.
In 1985 he was invited by the Ministry of Health to Beijing, where he established a factory staffed chiefly by disabled people. Soon the Ministry took a 70 per cent stake, and Mr. Deng Pufang - the paraplegic son of Mr. Deng Xiaoping, who had been hurled from a building by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution - joined the board.
"I owe my success to the economic opening launched by Mr. Deng" said Mr. Zhao, who met the late paramount leader.
In 1987 he began travelling overseas to market his products (this year he will visit Bangkok and Los Angeles, after Melbourne) although he still does not speak any foreign language. His chief aide in selling in to Japan was Mr. Li Xiao Hua, then a student there, who used his income from that market as a lever into Hong Kong real estate and other enterprises.
Mr. Li has since leaped over Mr. Zhao. Mr. Li, who imported the first Ferrari into China, is third wealthiest mainland Chinese, with an estimated fortune of $300 million, compared with the $20 million of Mr. Zhao, ranked 15th.
But 101 is still a growing earner, with a staff of 2,300 producing $170 million sales in 1996. And Mr. Zhao too is moving into real estate.
Meanwhile, his secret remains safely in the family. A daughter and son who work for 101 are the only others to whom Mr. Zhao has entrusted the secret formula.
Mr. Zhao has also built a reputation for philanthropy, particularly for helping disadvantaged children.
He said his first visit to Australia, from April 17, would involve a seminar in Melbourne on hair restoration, and meetings with potential business partners. His goal, as elsewhere, is to sell into the general Australian market, not to be quarantined to the overseas Chinese segment.
He has had an Australian agent, but sales could be much better, he said, "even though not many people live there." On his visit, he said: "I'll offer free treatment to 50 customers."
He claims 97 per cent short-term success, and 84 percent long-term - especially if the patients use, besides the lotion, pills that he manufactures to "make the kidneys stronger." He said: "The strenght of the hair comes from the kidneys." Mr. Zhao himself uses treatment 101B which, he said, stimulates hair colour as well as growth. He would not say how many of China's leaders are customers - but all, from 70-year-old President Jiang Zemin down, sport impressively black hair.
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