Ali Hasan
Just recently we had a new person who dethroned Mukesh Ambani to become Asia’s Richest Man and now he’s got even richer. We are talking about Mr. Zhong Shanshan who is clearly on a roll and is setting new wealth records day for himself day by day.
He is now richer than Warren Buffet as his net worth increased by $13.5 billion to a whopping $91.7 billion. He is now the 6th richest person in the world. He is the chairman of Nongfu Spring Co. which is a bottled-water company in China.
This happened because the shares of his company jumped 18% in the 1st two trading days of 2021. If the shares of his company keep on rising, then his net worth could also cross the $100 billion mark and he could become a centi-billionaire. If he did so, then he would become the 6th person to do so.
It’s only the second time a Chinese national has broken into the world’s Top 10 – property tycoon Wang Jianlin hit No. 8 in 2015 – and no one from the mainland has ever ranked this high on Bloomberg’s wealth index since it launched in 2012.
Nicknamed locally as the “Lone Wolf” for avoiding involvement in clubby business groups or politics, Zhong also took vaccine maker Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise Co. public in April. The stock has soared more than 2,500%.
While Covid-19 upended much of the global economy in 2020, it was a good year for the world’s ultra-rich. The 500 wealthiest people added $1.8 trillion to their fortunes and were worth a combined $7.6 trillion by year-end. Zhong, the biggest winner from Asia, amassed more than $71 billion, the most after Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk and Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos.
