Zhong Shanshan tops China’s richest list

Zhong Shanshan, Founder of Nongfu Spring, a bottled water giant, has topped the China’s rich list following a round of gains in two Chinese stock takeovers in which he is a controlling shareholder.

According to Forbes on Thursday September 24, 2020, Zhong, whose paper net worth was $ 57.2 billion, surpassed Jack Ma, Alibaba founder, whose holdings was $ 50.4 billion; and Pony Ma of Tencent with $ 56.3 billion holdings.

Zhong owes 84.4% of the bottled water giant which is an increase in the company’s 77% gains in Public offering of September 8 in Hong Kong.

The offering that was considered one of the biggest this year fetched the company about $ 1.1 billion.

Similarly, Zhong is a major stakeholder in a Chinese pharmaceutical company, Wantai Biological that is working on developing Covid-19 vaccine.

Since its initial public offering the Shanghai Stock Exchange in April, Wantai has been up with more than 2,000%

With the Thursday’s paper gains, Zhong, now China’s richest man ranks 17th on the world list following closely behind Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google co-founders, according to Forbes’ real time billionaire list