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Case Study

Amer International Group

By Denise H. Kenyon-Rouvinez and Nan Li

4 pages

November 2015

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Reference: IMD-7-1666

Wang Wenyin, founder and chairman of the Amer International Group, was born to farmer parents in 1968 in a small village in China’s eastern Anhui Province. After finishing university, he worked for a state-owned petrochemical company in Shanghai, but what he really wanted was to have his own business. In 1994, Wang started a power cord business which by 2014 had grown to be one of the world’s biggest copper players, ranking No. 295 on Fortune’s Global 500 list. He relied soley on his own talent strategy, soliciting the world’s top talent across the copper value chain. In fact, he was a staunch believer that passing one’s business on to one’s children was the surest way to kill a business. None of his relatives owned any equity in Amer and if they worked in the company, they received 30% less salary than non-family employees.

Learning Objective

This case sets the scene for a discussion on the different philosophies and business models illustrated by the Amer and Fotile cases.

Keywords

Family Business, Non-family Member, Talent Management

Settings

Asia, China
Amer International, Materials, Metals and Mining
1994-2014

Type

Published Sources

Available Languages

English

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