Saf. Bon Water Service: An undisputed giant in China's burgeoning water industry. The sweet smell of sludge: Saf. Bon treatment plant outside of Shanghai.

Image: Thierry Coulon for Forbes. At a sewage treatment plant on the outskirts of Shanghai, trucks unload 2.

Watch "NYPD To File Rape Case Against Weinstein", a CBSN video on CBSNews.com. View more CBSN videos and watch CBSN, a live news stream featuring original CBS News. Area controlled by the People's Republic of China shown in dark green; claimed but uncontrolled regions shown in light green.

There, it’s dehydrated and deodorised for disposal, with the water captured for reuse. The plant came onstream last year as China’s first domestic challenger to foreign competitors that might charge 5. An expansion under construction should add 3. The plant’s director, Shen Gengen, doesn’t hide his pride: “Our technology is unrivalled in the country.

Find the latest business news on Wall Street, jobs and the economy, the housing market, personal finance and money investments and much more on ABC News. Jaguar Land Rover Special Vehicle Operations is a quintessential niche product development group, a toy shop creating performance vehicles for true car lovers, and. The vast majority of industrialized societies are so totally disconnected from the natural world that very few even notice the rapidly dying ecosystems around them. Investopedia is the world's leading source of financial content on the web, ranging from market news to retirement strategies, investing education to insights from. © AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Terms of Use Preferences Contact Us. In producing everything from at-home-mushroom kits to foldable-ballet slippers, these young companies are making plenty of waves in startup land. Here is Entrepreneur.

You can take a shower with water coming out of our plant.” You can’t even if you wanted to, though, as the water is sold for industrial use to generate more income.“China’s [environmental] regulatory standards are rising,” says Zhang Chunlin, founder and chairman of the plant’s owner and designer Saf. Bon Water Service, headquartered nearby. It’s fuelling the sector’s growth and has brought us myriad opportunities.”  Zhang coined the name Saf. Bon from ‘safe’ and ‘bon’—“Two of the best words from human languages,” as the fluent English speaker puts it. The company’s revenue surged by 5. Best Under A Billion list, with household sewage accounting for 2. Water- supply services make up most of the rest.

The 5. 4- year- old holds 4. Saf. Bon’s $9. 00 million market capitalisation.

China didn’t pursue urban water supply on a massive scale until around 1. The late start in facilities and technology has led to a clear disparity with Western countries in water quality, says Zhang, while water availability is an issue in most of the nation’s parched north. Tightening environmental regulation is spurring domestic companies to bridge the tech gap, and Zhang is doing it with selective foreign acquisitions. Last year, Saf. Bon spent $3. Austria’s 6. 7- year- old KWI, a global leader in liquid- solid separating technology, and this year, grabbed a treatment arm of Korean infrastructure group Doosan. With Chinese desalination needs being another expanding part of its business (2. Saf. Bon this February took a chunk of seawater specialist Aqua.

Movietv4u - Watch Movies Free Online. Watch movies online free without sign up. Stream movies and tv series free online. Download movies online free in HD quality.

Swiss. These moves have helped to make Zhang’s outfit China’s corporate leader in desalination technology, says Guo Shaojun of GEP Research, a Beijing environmental consulting firm. China’s water treatment market saw a 1. But the overall sector is highly fragmented, with the biggest private player, Beijing Origin. Water Technology, having only a 4 percent share last year. Saf. Bon ranked 1.

Xiong Zhiqiang of market researcher Forward Industries Institute in Shenzhen says growth of conventional wastewater treatment is plateauing and desalination will continue to expand in China. An even bigger segment is the so- called Sponge City, an infrastructure initiative to better utilise precipitation and counter the risk of flooding or drought. China aims to implement it in 2. Saf. Bon has two Sponge City projects—out of the country’s 3.

The one in Liupanshui, Guizhou, into which Saf. Bon has pumped $2. PPP, will be fully onstream by year- end.

Already last year, Sponge City work accounted for half of Saf. Bon’s overall revenue. Cautious about the PPP model, Zhang has kept it to 5. Saf. Bon’s total contracts. Many companies are keen on PPP because of its big size. It shows up good on paper and suggests fast growth to investors, but [if over 7. Born to farmer parents on Shanghai’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 1. The job earned him $7,5. 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 Saf.

Bon as a competitor in 1. A wave of state sector veterans, especially technicians, left to start their own businesses within a few years of Deng’s 1.

Some economists call us ‘the ’9. 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.”Saf. Bon didn’t land its first big deal for eight years—a $1. Taiyuan, in northern China’s Shanxi Province. Unlike most of China’s thermal plants in the eastern or southern 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 Saf.

Bon’s capability. Then Sars hit China in 2. Most companies wouldn’t go on business meetings, and Taiyuan was a severely affected area. We talked to each other wearing masks,” Zhang remembers. There were only two or three people 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. Watch Evidence Download Full. Even when we were kids, he dared to swim in waters no one else did.”Such boldness put Saf.

Bon on track for more business in those inland areas, which today still brings two thirds of the company’s sales. In 2. 00. 4, it stumbled into municipal water treatment by supplying reclaimed domestic water to the new inland thermal plants. More doors have been opened since then, and Zhang took Saf.

Bon public on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2. Last year, Saf. Bon opened an office closer to Shanghai’s downtown area for corporate finance and strategic decisions, and Zhang has been splitting his 1. 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 2.

Afterward, he took a month off to attend a rowing programme at the University of Cambridge for Chinese entrepreneurs, organised 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 1.

He says: “Grooming the second gen is an idea worth exploring”—his two daughters both work in the chemical sector—“but it all comes down to whether they are the most capable for the job.”An entrepreneurial spirit and engineering mindset would seem to be prime qualifications.(This story appears in the 0. September, 2. 01. Forbes India. You can buy our tablet version from Magzter. To visit our Archives, click here.).