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Asia’s wealthiest woman lost more than half her wealth over the past year as China’s real estate sector was rattled by a cash crunch, a billionaire index showed Thursday.
Yang Huiyan, a major shareholder in Chinese property giant Country Garden, saw her total wealth plunge by more than 52 percent to $11.3 billion from $23.7 billion a year ago, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Yang’s fortune took a major hit on Wednesday when the Guangdong-based Country Garden’s China shares fell 15 percent after the company reported it would sell new shares to raise cash.
Yang inherited her wealth when her father — Country Garden founder Yang Guoqiang — transferred his share capital to her in 2005, according to state media.
She became Asia’s richest woman 2 years later after the developer’s public offering in Hong Kong.
But she is now barely keeping onto that title, with chemical fibres tycoon Fan Hongwei a close runner-up with a net worth of $11.2 billion on Thursday.
Chinese authorities clamped down on massive debts in the property sector in 2020, leaving main players such as Evergrande and Sunac desperately trying to make payments and pressuring them to negotiate a new with creditors as they veered on the edge of bankruptcy.
Buyers out across country, furious at lagging construction and delayed deliveries of their characteristics, have begun withholding mortgage payments for homes sold within a week of completion.
While Country Garden has largely remained unscathed by industry turmoil, it spooked investors with a Wednesday declaration that it planned to raise more than $343 million through with a share sale, partly to pay debts.
Money from the sale were used for “refinancing existing offshore indebtedness, general operating capital and future growth purposes,” Country Garden said in a submission with the Hong Kong stock exchange.
China’s banking controller has urged lending institutions to support the property sector and meet the “plausible financing needs” of firms as analysts and legislators fear financial contagion.
The property sector is expected to cost for 18-30 percent of the country’s GDP and is a key driver of growth in the country’s third economy.
