The largest stock offer in history has made Jack Ma (馬雲), founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, China’s richest person with a fortune of US$25 billion, an annual wealth ranking in the world’s second-largest economy showed yesterday.
“It has been an amazing year for China’s best tycoons, despite the jitters about the Chinese economy,” China-based luxury magazine publisher the Hurun Report (胡潤百富) said in its annual rich list.
Ma reaped more than US$800 million selling shares in the company he set up 15 years ago as Alibaba listed on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, based on company filings, with the value of his remaining stake of 7.8 percent surging to more than US$17 billion by Monday.
Last year, the estimated wealth of the former English teacher turned Internet entrepreneur was just over US$4 billion, which did not even place him in the top 20.
Alibaba’s listing raised a total of US$25 billion.
However, only one other Alibaba cofounder, now vice president of its China investment team, Simon Xie (謝世煌), made the rich list, the Hurun Report said.
Property tycoon Wang Jianlin (王健林), whose Wanda company bought US cinema chain AMC Entertainment, dropped to second place from first last year, with a fortune of US$24.2 billion, as the deflating of China’s real-estate bubble chased most developers out of the top 10.
A new face, Li Hejun (李河君) of renewable energy firm Hanergy, tied for third place with US$20.8 billion, alongside beverage magnate Zong Qinghou (宗慶后) of Wahaha.
Completing the top five was Pony Ma (馬化騰) of Tencent, operator of China’s most popular instant messaging application WeChat, with US$18.1 billion.
Technology commanded half of the top 10. Robin Li (李彥宏) of China’s dominant search engine Baidu was sixth; Richard Liu (劉強東), or Liu Qiangdong, of Alibaba competitor JD.com, took ninth, and Lei Jun (雷軍) of start-up mobile phone producer Xiaomi was 10th.
Rounding out the top 10 were father-and-son team Yan Jiehe (嚴介和) and Yan Hao (嚴昊) of road-builder China Pacific Construction in seventh position and another real-estate mogul, Yan Bin (嚴彬) of Reignwood in eighth.
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