personal finance

Ambition of China’s private jet boss soars


Jenny Lau is not a typical aviation entrepreneur. For a start, she is a woman in an industry that, from the pilots to the jet owners, is dominated by men.

She is also very young. Ms Lau founded Sino Jet — the private jet management company of which she is now president — in 2011 at the age of 26. She did not consider this risky, she says, quoting a Chinese proverb: “‘If you walk with bare feet, you are not afraid of people wearing shoes’ — if you start with nothing, you have nothing to lose.”

Sino Jet is growing fast. With 300 staff, it is now the third-largest private jet management company in China and the fifth-largest in Asia-Pacific, according to one study.

Of its 34-strong fleet, Sino Jet owns four aircraft and manages 30 for clients whom Ms Lau describes as “business elites in real estate, manufacturing, the energy sector and IT”. For a monthly fee of $15,000-$25,000, a manager helps clients buy, finance, manage and charter jets.

Ms Lau says that she has sometimes been the only woman in the room at industry meetings. As chair of the Asian Business Aviation Association, she is helping women gain recognition. But she has not experienced discrimination, she says, adding that she feels “lucky” in being from China where “women’s rights have been strongly promoted since the early 1980s”.

Ms Lau grew up in a small town in China’s Shandong province and attributes her resilience to her childhood. “I never lived with my mother and father,” she explains. With her parents assigned to jobs in far-flung locations, she spent her early years with her grandparents and attended the primary school attached to the factory where they worked.

At 13, her parents sent her to a UK boarding school. “I really appreciate what they did for me,” says Ms Lau. But it was tough. “I didn’t speak English and I had very little contact with home.”

After graduating from the University of Southern California, she worked for Microsoft and then took her first entrepreneurial leap. “A friend had oilfields in Peru and needed a supplier of tools,” she says. Ms Lau, who had no industry experience and did not speak Spanish, relocated to Lima and set up a drilling equipment import company.

Three years later she returned to the US to work as a private wealth manager for Morgan Stanley, before moving to Hong Kong following the financial crisis.

Her introduction to aviation came when a former Morgan Stanley client — a Hong Kong property billionaire — asked her to assist with the purchase of a private jet. Ms Lau helped to arrange the transaction and hired a Hong Kong company, led by expats, to manage the jet. For two years, she observed their strengths and weaknesses.

“All flying permits need approval by the Chinese air force, but they are reluctant to talk to foreigners because of security issues,” she says. Frustrated when permits were denied, she took over management operations. She says she established good relationships with the military and with aviation and airport authorities in China.

Noting that the private jet business was taking off in China, she established Sino Jet. “Within six months we already had seven contracts,” she says.

According to Dewey Yee, a Hong Kong-based aviation finance expert, China has responded to demand by making a “concerted effort to expand the sector”. The government has cut red tape and committed to building 500 more General Aviation airports, which accommodate private jets, by 2020.

Sino Jet hit turbulence in 2013. Clients fell behind on payments and rival companies poached staff. “Cash flow was tight and I poured all my savings into the company,” says Ms Lau, adding that, unable to share her worries with colleagues or family, she fell into “a great depression”.

Survival hinged upon providing a comprehensive service. “If Plan A isn’t possible, we don’t say no, we suggest a Plan B and make it work,” she says. The company’s client retention rate tops 90 per cent, says Ms Lau, and it sustained growth during the anti-corruption campaign launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2014 that discouraged conspicuous consumption.

In 2015, with a stable team and client base, Ms Lau sought private equity funds. Sino Jet was acquired by Tsinghua Holdings, which also bought Beijing-based Bear Jet. Merged under the Sinojet banner, this second acquisition gave Ms Lau the opportunity to manage China-registered jets, and to expand.

Looking ahead, market expansion is a “no brainer”, says Ms Lau. Despite China’s size, there are only about 500 private jets in operation, compared with nearly 13,000 in the US.

Sino Jet has just opened its fourth operating base (alongside Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai) in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou — a move to capitalise on the government’s plan to develop the Greater Bay Area. As business travel gains altitude in China, Ms Lau hopes so too will her company.



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