Bottled-water tycoon Zhong Shanshan has become China's wealthiest person, according to an annual ranking released Wednesday, as a government campaign to rein in the super-rich took a big bite out of the fortunes of perennial front-runners like Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma.

Zhong, in his late 60s, has seen his fortune swell following the stock listings last year of his Nongfu Spring mineral water and separate pharma company Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise, which has tapped into massive demand for Covid-19 test kits.

He is worth $60.5 billion, according to the Hurun Rich List, up seven percent.

Ranked third last year, Zhong was propelled to the top spot as the Communist Party government's drive to redistribute wealth in the name of equality sliced billions from the fortunes of other tycoons.

Ma, last year's richest, dropped to fifth as his fortune shrank 36 percent to $39.6 billion.

Ma and Alibaba fell out of favour with Beijing soon after he gave a speech late last year criticising China's financial regulators.

That resulted in Chinese officials spiking what would have been a world record $37 billion initial public offering for Alibaba's financial group Ant and kicked off a cascade of crackdowns on Chinese tech companies, alleged monopolistic practises, and powerful tycoons.

Pony Ma, boss of gaming giant and WeChat owner Tencent, dropped two spots to fourth as Chinese restrictions on video gaming reduced his fortune by 19 percent.

Second place was taken by TikTok founder Zhang Yiming.

The Hurun Research Institute, which compiles the list, said that for the first time the real estate sector had no names in the Top 10.

The sector's biggest loser was Xu Jiayin, founder of deeply troubled property giant Evergrande Group.

Xu had topped the list in 2017 and was fifth last year. But he has fallen to 70th with a nearly 70 percent reduction in his wealth to $11.3 billion, according to Hurun.

A liquidity crunch at Evergrande has hammered investor sentiment and rattled the country's crucial real estate market, while fanning fears of a possible contagion in the wider economy.

Chinese authorities have told Xu to use his dwindling personal wealth to alleviate the embattled company's debt crisis, according to media reports this week.

However, the overall number of individuals in China worth at least two billion yuan ($310 million) grew by 520 to a total of 2,918, Hurun said.

Growth in the electric vehicle market, in particular, fuelled the rising fortunes of several entrepreneurs, according to the list.

dma/ssy

Tencent

Alibaba

Related Links
Water News - Science, Technology and Politics

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

Humans to blame for warming lakes
Paris (ESA) Oct 26, 2021
While the climate crisis is, unfortunately, a reality, it is all too easy to assume that every aspect of our changing world is a consequence of climate change. Assumptions play no role in key environmental assessments and mitigation strategies such as we will see in the upcoming UN climate change COP-26 conference - it's the science and hard facts that are critical. New research published this week is a prime example of facts that matter. Using model projections combined with satellite data from E ... read more