Chinese fast-fashion firm Shein's founder Sky Xu Yangtian saw his personal wealth fall more than US$15 billion (HK$117 billion) to US$8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The online retailer was valued above Inditex at its peak - the fashion giant behind H&M and Zara, pushing Xu's fortune to over US$23 billion. However, the firm's valuation in the Hong Kong initial public offering is nearly 70 percent below the nearly US$100 billion market valuation that it was worth in 2022.
Over the past years, Chinese consumer brands that went public attracted strong investor interest until a wave of artificial intelligence companies' debuts shifted market attention, according to Bloomberg's report.
Sam Wyatt, an international-equities portfolio manager at U Ethical Investors, said in the report that Shein definitely missed the window, adding that e-commerce is less attractive than AI for investors.
Xu, who graduated from Qingdao University of Technology in 2007 with a degree in international trade, ventured into cross-border trade entrepreneurship in 2008, initially expanding into overseas markets with products such as wedding dresses.
He founded Shein in 2012 and focuses on the womenswear business, developing a supply chain that adopted a "small-batch, quick-response" model.
