Icon: enlarge
Ma in May 2019: wealth increased by more than a fifth, but no longer the richest person in China
Photo:
PHILIPPE LOPEZ / AFP
According to a study, Jack Ma is no longer the richest Chinese.
The founder of the online group Alibaba and the financial group Ant Group slipped to fourth place on the "Hurun Global Rich List," the Chinese version of Forbes' list of the super-rich.
In the two previous years, Ma and his family were still at the top.
Although he was able to increase his fortune by 22 percent to almost 56 billion dollars, he has now lost that top spot.
The new number one on the Chinese rich list is
Zhong Shanshan
, who controls the food company Nongfu Spring and the vaccine manufacturer Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy.
His net worth is estimated at 550 billion yuan (around $ 85 billion).
In second place is
Pony Ma
, the main shareholder of Internet giant Tencent.
According to the list, he increased his fortune by 70 percent to a good 74 billion dollars.
The third richest Chinese is
Collin Huang
, founder and head of the e-commerce company Pinduoduowie, with an increase of 283 percent to the equivalent of almost 70 billion dollars.
Zhang Yiming
, the founder of ByteDance - the parent company of the TikTok social network, which is particularly popular with young people worldwide - is the fifth richest Chinese.
His fortune is estimated at $ 54 billion.
Ma got into trouble with the Chinese authorities last year.
His replacement as the richest person in the country came "after China's regulators reined in the Ant Group and Alibaba over antitrust issues," according to the Hurun report.
Regulators had put a stop to Ant's $ 37 billion IPO in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
It should have been the largest public offering in the world.
Ma disappeared from the scene for almost three months after Ant's failed IPO last fall.
In a speech at the time, he criticized the supervisory authorities in China.
There has been much speculation about his whereabouts.
In January, he finally spoke up in a 50-second video from his foundation, in which he addressed teachers in rural areas.
Observers could not identify where the video was recorded.
Icon: The mirror
fdi / Reuters