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richest people released Tuesday, which has 130 dollar billionaires in
an emphatic declaration of the Asian giant's economic arrival.
Most of the super-wealthy on the Hurun Rich List, unlike Wang, made
their fortunes in the property and stock markets—the focus of
Beijing's massive government stimulus efforts over the past year.
'China's wealth is growing at breakneck speed,' Rupert Hoogewerf, the
founder of the Shanghai- based Hurun Report which publishes the annual
list, told a press conference. 'You can double the real number of
billionaires in China to 260. There are still a large number of
billionaires off the radar screens, managing to build up substantial
wealth away from the public spotlight from property, the stock market
and investments,' Hoogewerf said, noting China has the most known
dollar billionaires after the US. Wang, the founder of rechargeable
battery and electric car maker BYD, leapt 102 places to top the rich
list after his fortune increased more than five-fold to 5.1 billion
dollars thanks to US billionaire investor Warren Buffett, said
Hoogewerf. Wang's 27.8 per cent stake in BYD 'hit the big time'
after Buffett paid 230 million dollars for a 10 per cent stake in the
company last September. The rich list had 180 new entrants—despite
the entry criteria for the latest list rising by 50 per cent to 150
million dollars. Seven people moved into the top 10, in the
biggest shake-up since the report started publishing the rich list in
1999. Last year's richest man, Huang Guangyu, who made his fortune
building up the nation's largest electrical appliance chain Gome,
slipped to the 17th spot after he was detained late last year on
suspicion of market manipulation. Du Shuanghua, last year's
second-richest person, plunged 39 places to 41 as he battled a
state-owned company for control of Shandong- based private steel
manufacturer Rizhao Steel. 'Since our 2004 list, we have seen a
ten-fold increase in the number of individuals with personal wealth
of at least 150 million dollars,' said Hoogewerf. 'In 2004, we
could only find 100 individuals with 150 million, whereas this year,
we managed to find 1,000 individuals with 150 million.' A separate
report released Tuesday showed the number of super-rich people in the
Asia Pacific shrank in 2008 despite the region's relative resilience
in the face of the global economic slump. This year's Asia-Pacific
Wealth Report showed there were 2.4 million high-net-worth
individuals (HNWI) in 2008, a 14.2 per cent fall from the previous
year. The fall in HNWIs—people with investable assets of at least
one million US dollars—is almost in line with the global average of
14.9 per cent, the study by investment bank Merrill Lynch and
financial consultancy Capgemini said. China's HNWIs fared better
than their counterparts elsewhere in the region, falling only 11.8
per cent to 364,000 in 2008, thanks to a combination of closed
markets and robust macroeconomic growth.
