Asia’s richest woman saw her fortune halve this week due to China’s property crisis. This is the discreet Yang Huiyan, whose capital was valued in 2021 at 23.7 billion dollars.
According to the classification Bloomberg billionaires published this Thursday, his fortune is only 11.3 billion dollars today. Yang Huiyan is indeed the majority shareholder of Country Garden, one of China’s largest real estate developers. The company had achieved the highest turnover in the sector last year despite a real estate crisis.
A badly perceived share sale
Some groups are fighting for their survival like Evergrande, strangled by a slate of some 300 billion dollars. Country Garden is in better health, but is still trying to increase its liquidity as payment deadlines approach. The group put new shares up for sale on Wednesday to raise funds, a move seen by the markets as a sign of vulnerability.
Country Garden shares thus lost 15% of their value on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, effectively reducing Yang Huiyan’s personal fortune. The 40-year-old has become a billionaire since inheriting shares from her father, the founder of Country Garden, in 2005.
A fragile and over-indebted sector
The housing reform in China (1998) created a genuine real estate market and led to a meteoric boom in the sector, maintained by social norms, the acquisition of property often being a prerequisite for marriage. But the massive indebtedness of the promoters is perceived by the authorities as a major risk for the economy and the finances of the country.
To reduce this debt, Beijing has gradually tightened since 2020 the conditions of access to credit for promoters, drying up the sources of financing for groups already in debt. A wave of defaults followed, including that of the Evergrande group. The former Chinese number one in real estate is soon to unveil the beginnings of a restructuring plan.