Charles Yeung was born in the city of Huizhou, Guangdong province, in 1947. At the age of 19, he went to Hong Kong to work in clothing factories to support his large, poor family. There, he learned all about the clothing business, both manufacturing and management. His dedication to his work and personality got him promoted quickly, ultimately to factory manager. But he was still not satisfied, so he took his hard-earned savings – around HK$ 50,000 – and, with another HK$ 50,000 borrowed from friends, started his own clothing business with the “Glorious Sun” factory. At first, the little-known factory was not getting many orders at all, and, just as it was on the verge of shutting down, Yeung’s fortunes changed and the factory finally took off.
After many years of hard work, he was able to start setting up branches overseas, in places like Indonesia and Bangladesh and by the early 90s, the Glorious Sun Group had dozens of subsidiaries around the world and a yearly production of more than 20 million garments, with a turnover of as much as $400 million.
In 1990, the group bought Jeanswest, an 18-year-old Australian casual clothing retailer, and soon expanded to New Zealand. Jeanswest now has more than 300 stores in Australia and New Zealand and has become the two countries’ second-largest brand. Jeanswest also had a sales network in the Middle East.
After 1993, China became Yeung’s newest target, with the first Jeanswest store on mainland being opened in Shanghai, where its cheap-but-chic clothing was directed at the 18 – 25 age group. The move proved to be a wise one and, in the first year, the brand spread across the mainland, with 65 new branches in Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin.
The Glorious Sun Group became the largest garment maker and exporter in Southeast Asia and began expanding into finance and real estate. In 1996, its garment-making, trade and retail arm, Glorious Sun Enterprises, was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with stock subscriptions 236 times the amount to be issued. Yeung was soon nicknamed the “King of Pants” and was a “successful enterprise star among the new generation of Hong Kong people”. He also won a young industrialist of Hong Kong award. In 2011, it had 110 companies directly under it and 21,000 employees, with a turnover reaching HK$ 6.8 billion.
Company profile
The Glorious Sun Group was founded in 1974, as a small jeans-manufacturing operation. Now, after nearly four decades of development, it has become a multinational group that covers China, Vietnam, Singapore, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Middle East and is involved in trade, retailing, clothing, real estate, and investment.
Its major brand, Jeanswest, has over 3,000 stores in China and Australia. In 2011, it brought in 4.7 billion yuan in China, and, by 2014, is expected to have a turnover of 10 billion.
In 1997, Glorious Sun Enterprises was chosen by the Dow Jones Industrial Index as one of the Hong Kong component stocks. In 1998, HSI Services chose it as one of the 50 companies on the New Hang Seng Medium Enterprise Index. Then in Nov 1999, it was chosen as one of the world's 300 best small companies by Forbes Magazine. That same year, the Hong Kong Productivity Council added it to the city’s Powerhouse Hall of Fame.
Glorious Sun Enterprises provides quality products and services, with a mission of customer satisfaction, guaranteed development opportunities for employees, reasonable returns for shareholders, and joint grow with business partners. At the same time it looks to provide social benefits while pursuing its "From society, to society" goal.
