Fosun group chairman Guo Guangchang, who owns several companies in Portugal, has dropped 35 places on China’s richest list to 126th, in the worst year for the country’s billionaires since 1998.
Guo’s personal fortune, 55, was the equivalent of about $5.5 billion in 2022, according to the list compiled by Hurun Report Inc, a research unit based in Shanghai and considered Forbes.chinese.
Fosun, which has a debt of about €38 billion, has already sold billions of euros in assets this year as it faces mounting financing problems in the Chinese and international markets.
Shares of Fosun International Limited, the group’s main component listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, are down more than 40% in the past 12 months.
Over the past decade, Fosun has made a series of cross-border acquisitions, including in Portugal the insurance company Fidelidade, a nearly 30% stake in Millennium BCP bank and more than 5% in REN – Redes Energéticas Nacionais.
According to the Hurun list released today, the number of billionaires in China registered its biggest drop in 24 years in 2022, due to the impact of the covid-19 ‘zero cases’ policy and the crisis in the real estate sector.
According to this ranking, 1,305 people in China now have an estimated wealth of at least 5 billion yuan (690 million euros), down 11% from last year.
The accumulated wealth of Chinese billionaires is equivalent to approximately EUR 3.5 billion, an 18% year-over-year decline, also representing the largest year-on-year decline in the past 24 years.
China is one of the last countries in the world to maintain strict epidemic prevention measures. The repeated blockades of neighborhoods, districts and entire cities imply an interruption of production and supply chains and trade, bringing economic activity to a standstill.
Chinese billionaires also suffered in the stock market, due to a Beijing-launched regulatory campaign in the technology sector, uncertainties related to the war in Ukraine and the rise in interest rates by the US Federal Reserve.
The personal fortune of Yang Huiyan, who runs the real estate group Country Garden Holding, recorded the biggest loss, namely 15.7 billion euros.
The richest Chinese remains Zhong Shanshan, founder of the bottled water company Nongfu Spring, which saw his fortune rise by 17% to 65 billion euros.
Nearly 300 Chinese who were on this list last year are no longer on this list. Most belong to the real estate sector, which is facing a liquidity crisis.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that China’s economy will grow by 3.2% this year, which would be its weakest pace in the past four decades, excluding 2020, the year the Covid-19 pandemic began.
Source: DN
