China’s property crisis causes Asia’s richest woman to lose half of her $24 billion fortune
The growing Chinese real estate crisis, which has put major developers in debt, has caused Yang Huiyan, the richest woman in Asia, to lose more than half of her wealth. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Ms. Yang, the majority shareholder in Country Garden, the largest developer in China, had her net worth fall by more than 52% in one year, from $23.7 billion to $11.3 billion.
Her decline in wealth serves as a stark reminder of the nation’s prolonged real estate crisis, which raises worries that it will eventually harm the country’s financial system and funding sources.
The crisis started in 2020 when Chinese authorities cracked down on the industry’s unsustainable debt, driving major businesses like Evergrande to the verge of bankruptcy.
When Yang Guoqiang, the founder of Country Garden, purportedly transferred his shares to Yang in 2005, she inherited her money from him. At the developer’s initial public offering two years later, at the age of 26, she rose to the position of richest woman in Asia.
(With inputs from agencies)
