Asia’s richest woman Yang Huiyan watches fortune vanish

Asia’s wealthiest woman Yang Huiyan had to watch on Wednesday as her eye-watering fortune plunged again. It has been a disastrous year.

Yanh Huiyan's fortunes have been halved.

It’s been a tough year for Asia’s wealthiest woman.

Yang Huiyan, the majority shareholder in Chinese property giant Country Garden, has watched as her staggering wealth plummetted.

Thanks to the real estate sector’s cash crunch, Yang’s net worth plunged by more than 52 per cent from $US23.7 ($A33.9) billion to $11.3 ($A16) a year ago, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Yang’s fortune took a major hit on Wednesday when the Guangdong-based Country Garden’s Hong Kong-listed shares fell 15 percent (almost $A3 billion) after the company announced it would sell new shares to raise cash.

Yang inherited her wealth when her father — Country Garden founder Yang Guoqiang —transferred his shares to her in 2005, according to state media.

She became Asia’s richest woman two years later after the developer’s initial public offering in Hong Kong.

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Yanh Huiyan's fortunes have been halved.

But she is now barely holding onto that title, with chemical fibres tycoon Fan Hongwei a close runner-up with a net worth of $11.2 billion on Thursday.

Chinese authorities cracked down on excessive debt in the property sector in 2020, leaving major players such as Evergrande and Sunac struggling to make payments and forcing them to renegotiate with creditors as they teetered on the edge of bankruptcy.

Buyers across the country, furious at lagging construction and delayed deliveries of their properties, have begun withholding mortgage payments for homes sold before completion.

While Country Garden has remained relatively unscathed by industry turmoil, it spooked investors with a Wednesday announcement that it planned to raise more than $343 million through a share sale, partly to pay debts.

Proceeds from the sale would be used for “refinancing existing offshore indebtedness, general working capital and future development purposes,” Country Garden said in a filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange.

China’s banking regulator has urged lenders to support the property sector and meet the “reasonable financing needs” of firms as analysts and policymakers fear financial contagion.

The property sector is estimated to account for 18-30 percent of the country’s GDP and is a key driver of growth in the world’s second-largest economy.

Yang Huiyan (R), the richest person on the Chinese mainland, and her husband pose for a photo during their wedding ceremony.

Analysts have warned that the industry is mired in a “vicious cycle” that would further dampen consumer confidence, following the release of dismal Q2 growth figures that were the worst since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

What’s happened to Yang is also happening to property developer’s across China.

The Chinese government sparked a crisis in the property industry last year when it launched a drive to kerb excessive debt among real estate firms as well as rampant consumer speculation.

Evergrande — a real estate giant with a presence in over 280 Chinese cities — was the most prominent developer to pay the price for the clampdown.

More than $300 billion in debt, it teetered for months on the edge of default, returning each time from the brink thanks to a last-minute repayment.

— with AFP