Country Garden Holdings Co.’s chair is China’s richest woman once again.
A rally in the nation’s shares after authorities said they’d ease some quarantine rules boosted the stocks that had suffered the most this year.
Country Garden surged a record 35 percent on Friday in Hong Kong and its property-management unit jumped 21 percent, pushing the fortune of Yang Huiyan to US$8.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. She regained US$2.5 billion in wealth this week after Country Garden surged 76 percent.
Yang lost her title as the richest woman in China -- and Asia -- in July, with a nation-wide property crisis sinking shares of her companies. Despite this week’s rebound, the sector is still struggling, and Country Garden and its affiliate remain the biggest decliners this year on Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index with losses of more than 67 percent.
Longfor Group Holdings Ltd. was also among the best gainers this week, pushing the fortune of founder Wu Yajun to US$7.4 billion. When she stepped down as chair of the developer last month, the company’s shares and bonds tanked.
Chinese stocks have suffered this year as stringent Covid policies are hurting the world’s second-largest economy, and traders have long sought any signs of easing restrictions. On Friday, the nation cut quarantine for inbound travelers to eight days from 10, pulled back on testing and ended flight bans. The Hang Seng Index had its best day since March.
After the market close, news broke that Chinese regulators told the nation’s second-tier banks to dole out another 400 billion yuan (US$56 billion) of financing for the property sector in the final two months of the year.
Still, China’s ultra-rich are on track for their worst year in at least a decade. The nation’s 73 billionaires who are among the 500 wealthiest people in the world were worth US$803 billion on Friday, according to Bloomberg’s wealth index. At the end of last year, 79 Chinese tycoons controlled fortunes amounting to US$1.1 trillion.
(Bloomberg)
Yang Huiyan. (Bloomberg)
