Asia’s richest woman loses half her wealth in China property crisis

A man walks past a housing complex by Chinese property developer Evergrande in Beijing on December 8, 2021. (Photo by Noel Celis / AFP)

Asia’s wealthiest woman lost more than half of her fortune over the past year as China’s real estate sector was rocked by a cash crunch, a billionaire index showed Thursday.

Yang Huiyan, a majority shareholder in Chinese property giant Country Garden, saw her net worth plunge by more than 52 percent to $11.3 billion from $23.7 billion a year ago, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Yang’s fortune took a major hit on Wednesday when the Guangdong-based Country Garden’s Hong Kong-listed shares fell 15 percent after the company announced it would sell new shares to raise cash.

Yang inherited her wealth when her father — Country Garden founder Yang Guoqiang — transferred his shares to her in 2005, according to state media.

She became Asia’s richest woman two years later after the developer’s initial public offering in Hong Kong.

But she is now barely holding onto that title, with chemical fibers tycoon Fan Hongwei a close runner-up with a net worth of $11.2 billion on Thursday.

Chinese authorities cracked down on excessive debt in the property sector in 2020, leaving major players such as Evergrande and Sunac struggling to make payments and forcing them to renegotiate with creditors as they teetered on the edge of bankruptcy.

Buyers across the country, furious at lagging construction and delayed deliveries of their properties, have begun withholding mortgage payments for homes sold before completion.

While Country Garden has remained relatively unscathed by industry turmoil, it spooked investors with a Wednesday announcement that it planned to raise more than $343 million through a share sale, partly to pay debts.

Proceeds from the sale would be used for “refinancing existing offshore indebtedness, general working capital and future development purposes,” Country Garden said in a filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange.

China’s banking regulator has urged lenders to support the property sector and meet the “reasonable financing needs” of firms as analysts and policymakers fear financial contagion.

The property sector is estimated to account for 18-30 percent of the country’s GDP and is a key driver of growth in the world’s second-largest economy.

Analysts have warned that the industry is mired in a “vicious cycle” that would further dampen consumer confidence, following the release of dismal Q2 growth figures that were the worst since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.