Bottled water magnate topples Jack Ma as China’s richest person, as Evergrande boss takes a tumble
Alibaba founder Jack Ma has been toppled as China’s richest person, after a brutal crackdown by Beijing shook up the ranks of the country’s billionaires.
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A bottled water magnate has toppled Alibaba founder Jack Ma to be named China’s richest person.
Zhong Shanshan, the founder of bottled water giant Nongfu Spring, has topped this year’s Hurun China Rich List with a net worth of $US60.6 billion, amid major reshuffles as a result of crackdowns by the Chinese Communist Party.
“New energy has had an amazing year, whilst real estate, home tutoring services, pork production and video gaming have had a bad year,” said Rupert Hoogewerf, Hurun Report chairman and chief researcher.
Ma, once China’s most prominent businessman, fell afoul of Beijing just over a year ago for comments at a business forum critical of the CCP, sparking a swift and brutal reaction.
He disappeared for months as his e-commerce empire was effectively smashed to pieces by CCP, wiping billions of dollars off Ma’s net worth.
According to Hurun, Ma lost $US22.6 billion over the past year – more than a third of his fortune – but is still the country’s fifth-wealthiest person with $US39.6 billion.
Ma recently reappeared in Europe on a luxury yacht, reportedly put to work by Beijing finding new opportunities to boost Chinese agriculture using technology.
Another notable plunge down the rich list was Xu Jiayin, founder and chairman of troubled property giant China Evergrande, who dropped from fifth to 70th place after losing $US23.3 billion.
Evergrande, the world’s most indebted company with more than $US300 billion in liabilities, continues to teeter on the brink and there are fears its collapse could be a “Lehman Brothers moment”, sparking a 2008-style global financial crisis.
Xu, who topped the research firm’s annual ranking in 2017, now has a personal fortune of just $US11.3 billion – which is firmly in the sights of Beijing.
Bloomberg reported this week that the CCP had ordered Xu to pay off Evergrande’s debts with his own cash.
A broader crackdown by the Chinese government on the real estate sector saw mainland property tycoons drop out of the top 10 for the first time.
Wang Wenxue of developer China Fortune Land saw his net worth fall 88 per cent to $US930 million, after Beijing imposed tough new rules on property loans earlier this year.
TikTok founder Zhang Yiming tripled his wealth last year, landing in second place with $US52.8 billion.
He overtook Tencent founder Pony Ma, who suffered as a result of Chinese crackdowns on video gaming targeted at children.
Tencent, which owns the ubiquitous WeChat messaging platform and popular games such as League of Legends, remains China’s biggest company by market capitalisation, but has fallen from nearly $US1 trillion in February to just under $US600 billion.
Ma lost around $U10 billion – nearly one fifth of his wealth – falling from second to fourth place with $U49 billion.
In third place was “battery king” Zeng Yuqun of CATL, China’s largest battery maker, who tripled his wealth to US$47.4 billion.
Hurun says new energy is the big story of the year, accounting for eight of the 10 fastest risers.
Other big winners were electric vehicle makers Wei Jianjun and Han Xuejuan of Great Wall Motor, Wang Chuanfu of BYD, solar makers Liu Hanyuan of Tongwei and related miners, including Luo Liguo of Hesheng Silicon.
“A boom in new energy entrepreneurs, sparked by carbon reduction targets, as well as a spate of new listings of tech-related companies drove this year’s Hurun China Rich List to records heights, adding more than 20 per cent, both in terms of number of individuals and also total wealth,” Mr Hoogewerf said.
China added almost US dollar billionaire a day for the past year, adding 307 to a total of 1185 billionaires, five times that of a decade ago.
The Hurun Rich List grew by 520 individuals, and now includes 2918 people with wealth of two billion yuan ($US310 million) or more, triple that of a decade ago. Total wealth rose 24 per cent to $US5.3 trillion, six times that of a decade ago.
Originally published as Bottled water magnate topples Jack Ma as China’s richest person, as Evergrande boss takes a tumble
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