Friday 6 November 2009

Combined wealth of China’s richest 40 double in a year


Wang Chuanfu, chairman of battery and car maker BYD Co, is China’s richest man, partly aided by an investment US billionaire Warren Buffett made in his company.

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Guanyu said...

Combined wealth of China’s richest 40 double in a year

(BEIJING) Wang Chuanfu, chairman of battery and car maker BYD Co, is China’s richest man, partly aided by an investment US billionaire Warren Buffett made in his company.

Mr. Buffett’s acquisition of a 10 per cent stake in his company has helped fuel a more than five-fold increase in Mr. Wang’s estimated personal wealth to US$5.8 billion, the Forbes Magazine said yesterday.

Mr. Wang rose 22 places on Forbes’s China rich list from last year, when he was ranked 23 with an estimated wealth of US$1.06 billion.

BYD’s shares have gained more than eight-fold since the MidAmerican Energy unit of Mr. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway agreed in September 2008 to buy the stake for HK$1.8 billion (S$324.4 million) in the company. BYD has also benefited from Beijing’s policy incentives, including cuts in sales tax for small cars. The policy has fuelled a 98 per cent increase in the company’s first-half net income. Its F3 has also become China’s bestselling car in the first nine months.

Last year’s No 1 Liu Yongxing slipped to second spot despite increasing his fortune to US$5.5 billion from US$2.5 billion in 2008. He made his money through privately held company East Hope and stakes in China Minsheng Bank, Minsheng Insurance and Bright Dairy.

Zong Qinghou, Hangzhou Wahaha Group chairman, rose 15 places to third on this year’s list with a fortune of US$4.8 billion after his company settled a two-year dispute with Groupe Danone for control of the Wahaha brand.

The combined wealth of the 40 richest men and women on the Forbes list doubled to US$106 billion from US$52 billion last year as stock markets and property values recovered from a slump induced by the global financial crisis.

The net worth of the country’s 400 richest people rose to a record US$314 billion from US$173 billion a year ago, Forbes said.

‘The gains in their personal fortunes were a sharp reversal to the losses sustained by billionaires in other parts of the world, (and) reflected the rise of China,’ Forbes senior editor Russell Flannery said.

BYD’s rising share price also helped make Lu Xiangyang, who co-founded BYD, China’s fourth-richest man with an estimated worth of US$4.1 billion, Forbes said. Mr. Lu was ranked 40 on last year’s list with US$790 million of wealth.

Yang Huiyan, the wealthiest woman on the list, is ranked fifth after her fortune increased by 75 per cent to US$3.9 billion - but she is still well below her 2007 net worth of US$16.2 billion.

The 28-year-old’s fortune was tied up in Guangdong developer Country Gardens, run by her father Yeung Kwok Keung, who transferred shares to her, Forbes said. But her rank fell to fifth from third as her gains lagged behind those of the BYD co-founders\. \-- Bloomberg, Reuters, AFP