28 | FORBES ASIA AUGUST 2017
It shows up good on paper and sug-
gests fast growth to investors, but [if
over 70%] it could easily cause cash
flow problems due to a longer payment
cycle,” he avers.
Born to farmer parents on Shang-
hai’s fringe, Zhang took his high school
teacher’s suggestion to attend central
China’s Wuhan University to study the
chemistry of thermal power plants. The
major guaranteed a decent job in the
days when China assigned each college
graduate a tenured position.
Sure enough, Zhang returned to
Shanghai in 1984 to join a state-owned
water and power institute as an engi-
neer. The job earned him $7,500 a year,
when the national average was merely a
few hundred dollars.
However, seeking
more freedom and
heartened by China’s
then-leader Deng
Xiaoping’s advocacy of
economic reform and
opening, Zhang quit
the much coveted job
and set up SafBon as
a competitor in 1995,
rounding up $70,000
in seed money from
friends.
A wave of state
sector veterans,
especially technicians,
left to start their own
businesses within a
few years of Deng’s
1992 speeches. “Some
economists call us ‘the
’92ers,’ ” says Zhang.
“We had been well
trained inside the
system, learning the
practices and building
our network, and this
made it easier for us to
succeed outside.”
SafBon didn’t land
its first big deal for
eight years—a $1.5
million contract with a
thermal plant in Taiyu-
an, in northern China’s
Shanxi Province. Unlike most of China’s
thermal plants in the eastern or south-
ern areas at the time, new ones inland
required a filtering technology for dry
conditions, which had been developed
with the help of retired engineers from
Zhang’s former employer.
“It was those old comrades that laid
the tech foundation for our company,”
he says, but it fell to Zhang to build trust
in SafBon’s capability. Then SARS hit
China in 2003.
“Most companies wouldn’t go on
business meetings, and Taiyuan was a
severely affected area. We talked to each
other wearing masks,” Zhang remem-
bers. “There were only two or threepeople on my flight there, and also only
two or three people around when I was
dining in my hotel.”
“He’s always been a bold character,”
says the sewage-treatment director,
Shen, who grew up with Zhang in the
village outside urban Shanghai. “Even
when we were kids, he dared to swim in
waters no one else did.”
Such boldness put SafBon on track
for more business in those inland areas,
which today still brings two thirds of the
company’s sales. In 2004, it stumbled
into municipal water treatment by sup-
plying reclaimed domestic water to the
new inland thermal plants.
More doors have been opened since
then, and Zhang took SafBon public on
the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2011.
Last year, SafBon opened an office
closer to Shanghai’s downtown area for
corporate finance and strategic deci-
sions, and Zhang has been splitting
his 15-hour workdays between there
and headquarters in the outskirts. “Of
course, we are an engineering company,
but any company in its later stages of
development would rely more heavily
on finance,” he says.
The separation also is intended to
give more leeway to other executives
at the headquarters. Zhang resigned as
general manager in 2015, leaving day-
to-day operations to staff. (Afterward,
he took a month off to attend a rowing
program at the University of Cambridge
for Chinese entrepreneurs, organized by
real estate boss and rowing enthusiast
Wang Shi. Zhang continues to make
time for outdoor sports.)
With succession in mind, the
founder aims at recruiting 100 manag-
ers over the next ten years in a company
with 400 employees today.
He says: “Grooming the second gen
is an idea worth exploring”—his two
daughters both work in the chemi-
cal sector—“but it all comes down to
whether they are the most capable for
the job.”
An entrepreneurial spirit and en-
gineering mind-set would seem to be
prime qualifications.SafBon founder Zhang Chunlin, known as a “bold character.”
FBEST UNDER A BILLION — SAFBON
FORBES ASIA