Xiangzhou District, Zhuhai

Chairmen Lei Jun of Kingsoft and Liang Yunchao of By-Health are among 740 billionaires who saw their wealth decrease last year while Dong Fan of Jafron Biomedical joined 343 new faces on the Hurun Global Rich List 2017.

Overall, Hurun said upon releasing its list on March 7, “it has been generally another good year for the billionaires of the world as 1,037 saw their wealth increase.”

Lei Jun

Lei Jun of Kingsoft is also the founder of Mi Technology. Age 48, he is 145th on the list with an estimated wealth of 65 billion yuan ($9.41 billion), 82 places lower than last year. Reports in the news media stated that annual sales of Mi Technology, established in April 2010, fell out of the global top five after years of rapid growth.

Liang Yunchao

By-Health’s Liang Yunchao, who also is 48, fell 558 places to 1,581st with an estimated property wealth of 10 billion yuan ($1.45 billion). The fall was attributed to a substantial decrease of By-Health’s share price caused by reduced annual revenue. It is the first time that revenues have fallen since the company went public seven years ago.

Dong Fan [File photos]

While the other two lost points, Dong Fan, 47, ascended to 1,952th on the list. The Jafron Biomedical leader had a gross fortune of 7.5 billion yuan ($1.09 billion). He has a large number of shares in the company, which has been engaged in blood purification since coming onto the market last year.

Established as a research unit in 1999, Hurun Report Inc. has grown into a leading media group targeted at China and India high-net-worth individuals. Headquartered in Shanghai, it has offices around China, in the UK and US, and India. The list has been published for six consecutive years, with a lower threshold of $1 billion. Up to Jan 15, a total of 2,257 tycoons from 1,811 companies in 68 countries were documented, a record with 69 more than last year. The aggregate wealth of the tycoons reached 55.9 trillion yuan ($8.09 trillion), up 16 percent on last year and amounting to 10.7 percent of global GDP.

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, continued to hold the top spot with a fortune of 560 billion yuan ($81.02 billion), followed by investor Warren Buffett, and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. Two-thirds of those on the list are self-made while others inherited the businesses. As for gender, 15 percent are women. In total, China has the most of any country with 609, leading the US’s 552.