Guo Guangchang, chairman and founder of Fosun, China’s largest private conglomerate, wants to be like Warren Buffett.

When Mr Guo announced last week that his company had bought a stake in Folli Follie, the Greek luxury goods brand, he quoted the example of Mr Buffett twice in half an hour to make clear his intention to transform Fosun from an industrial conglomerate into a long-term strategic investment company, much like Berkshire Hathaway.

“Mr Buffett focuses on investment skills and I always keep one of his quotes in my mind,” he told the Financial Times, citing an aphorism by Benjamin Graham, Mr Buffett’s mentor. “In the short term, the stock market behaves like a voting machine – but in the long term, it acts like a weighing machine.