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Zhong Shanshan
Photographer: Jiang Xin / VCG via Getty Images
Photographer: Jiang Xin / VCG via Getty Images
It was the most popular IPO in the city. Now Rising shares of Nongfu Spring Co. are making its founder the second richest person in China.
Shares in the bottled water maker rose as much as 85% and traded 55% higher at noon in Hong Kong. The debut is on track to become the city’s fourth-highest on record among companies that raised more than $ 1 billion.
The increase is pushing the net worth of Zhong Shanshan, who owns 84% of the company he founded in 1996, to more than $ 51 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He is now the richest person in China after Jack Ma of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., and the third richest in Asia.
The initial public offering was a huge success in Hong Kong, so much so that the retail side had more than 1,100 times and Nongfu increased the number of shares allocated to the public. That was after it traded at the upper end of a traded range.
The most popular IPOs
Nongfu is the most popular Hong Kong IPO of the last decade
Source: Bloomberg
Despite the coronavirus outbreak, the IPO market in China and Hong Kong has remained vibrant this year. The companies raised nearly $ 60 billion through the sale of new shares in 2020, more than double the number in the same period in 2019, data compiled by Bloomberg shows. Hong Kong is becoming an increasingly popular listing amid tensions between the United States and China, while demand from retail investors has risen as ample liquidity encouraged banks to lend. In China, IPOs produced at least 24 new billionaires in the first half of the year.
Zhong, also known to local media as the Lone Wolf for avoiding business groups and politics, is the only tycoon among the five richest people in China who does not belong to the tech or real estate industry, who normally dominate the rankings. His fortune increased in April when Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise Co., a company in which it acquired a majority stake almost two decades ago, went public in Shanghai. The stock has risen more than 2,100% since then.
New No. 2
Zhong Shanshan’s wealth increases after Nongfu’s listing
Source: Bloomberg Billionaires Index
This is a lot Change for a man whose education was interrupted during the nation’s Cultural Revolution and who worked in construction and journalism before turning to bottled water. Now Zhong shares his success: Nongfu’s list is also creating at least 68 new millionaires. Dozens of them became shareholders last year, when Zhong and his holding company transferred 0.79% of Nongfu as part of a staff incentive program.
Jack Ma has topped the list of China’s richest people for most of the past six years, after Alibaba went public in America. Ant Group is poised to further increase your fortune – your involvement would be worth it $ 25 billion if it achieves the $ 225 billion valuation that people familiar with the matter have said it targets.
– With the assistance of Pei Yi Mak and Julia Fioretti
(Updates for stock movement at all times, add table)
