[Luo Jie]Billionaire Warren Buffett turned Dalian Dayang Trands Co into China's best-performing clothing stock after saying he wears the company's suits and praising it as "wonderful".
Dayang, based in the northeastern city of Dalian, rose 9.97 percent to 14.67 yuan ($2.15) yesterday in Shanghai. The stock is up 46 percent this week after Dayang posted a video on its website of Buffett congratulating the company and Chairwoman Li Guilian on its 30th anniversary.
"I have to tell you that I now have nine suits all made in China. I threw away the rest of my suits," Berkshire Hathaway Inc's Chairman and CEO Buffett, 79, said in the video, adding that his business partner Charlie Munger and Microsoft Corp Chairman Bill Gates also wear Dayang's outfits.
Dayang is up 260 percent this year, the most of 25 apparel companies traded in Shanghai and Shenzhen. The company, with 2008 sales of 894.6 million yuan, and a market value of less than $350 million, doesn't have any "disclosable business relationship" with Buffett, it said on Wednesday.
"Buffett has a lot of influence on the stock market and so when Dalian Dayang shows him wearing their suits, that has an impact," said Kong Jun, a Shanghai-based analyst at China Jianyin Investment Securities Co. Kong recommends investors buy Dalian Dayang's shares.
Buffett assistant Carrie Kizer confirmed that Buffett recorded the video at Li's request. "It was something they asked him to do and he agreed," Kizer said in an e-mail. Dayang's spokesman could not be reached for comment.
"It's been a long time since I got compliments on how I look but since I'm wearing Madam Li's suits, I get compliments all the time," he said.
Buffett, the world's second-richest man with an estimated fortune of $37 billion according to Forbes magazine, jokes in the video that "maybe Bill and I could start a clothing store" and sell the company's suits, adding that "some day we might even be rich, who knows?"
Gates is the world's richest man with wealth of $40 billion, according to Forbes.
Li founded Dayang in September 1979 with 85 employees, according to its website. She now has around 6,800 workers and about 40 percent of sales are derived from the US and Europe.
The company has 20 stores in 11 cities in China, according to its website. At its 250-sq-m store in Beijing's Finance Street Shopping Center, tailored suits range from 6,800 yuan at the cheapest to 21,000 yuan when made with Loro Piana cloth, said a saleswoman in the shop. Off-the-peg outfits cost about 8,000 yuan.
Visitors to the shop, which features plush armchairs, can order an entire wardrobe from suits to shirts, belts, leather accessories, shoes, ties and cufflinks. Customers buying suits at the top end of the price range may be looked after by Ivano Cattarin, who left Giorgio Armani SpA to become Dayang's chief designer, the saleswoman said, declining to give her name.
