Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: A laborer-turned-journalist-turned-businessman,
Zhong Shanshan has quietly replaced India’s top billionaire Mukesh Ambani as Asia’s richest man, media reports said on Thursday.
He has been so off the world’s financial radars that he is often known locally as a ‘lone wolf’.
He is a ‘private billionaire’ who rarely surfaced in the media but has shocked global tycoons with his net worth zooming this year to USD 77.8 billion, compared to Ambani’s USD 77 billion.
Not only Ambani, he has also replaced many a Chinese billionaire, including tech titans like Alibaba’s Jack Ma.
Zhong Shanshan, 66, worked his way up from humble beginnings as a laborer. Then he became a journalist, graduated as an entrepreneur in mushroom farming and healthcare—finally selling bottled water.
In just one year (2020), when the COVID-19 afflicted world economy turned precariously weak, Zhong’s net worth zoomed from USD 6.9 billion to USD 77.8 billion, an addition of USD 70.9 billion in less than 12 months, making him fastest and the 11th-richest person on the globe.
“It’s one of the fastest accumulations of wealth in history, and all the more remarkable considering that until this year he was little known outside of China”, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index.
As an entrepreneur, he achieved success in two unrelated sectors. In April, he took vaccine maker Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise Co. to the public. A few months later, his bottled water maker Nongfu Spring Company became a darling of Hong Kong’s bourses when its stocks jumped 155 percent since their debut. Also, Wantai’s shares zoomed up more than 2,000 percent.
The Nongfu stock peaked this week after Citigroup Inc. analysts said the company has consolidated its market dominance with ample cash flow. Zhong’s other firm, Wantai, is among those developing a COVID-19 vaccine, with a potential to strike gold soon.
Zhong has also climbed up the ranks as China’s tech companies have tumbled amid increased government scrutiny and regulator’s stick.
Jack Ma, Asia’s richest person before Ambani took over this year, is now worth $51.2 billion, down from a high of $61.7 billion in October 2020.