Amid China’s sinking real estate market, a number of industry tycoons were dropped from this year’s Hurun 100 Richest People List, released on Nov. 8. Among them, the wealth of Evergrande’s Xu Jiayin shrank sharply to 30 billion yuan (about $4.22 billion), putting him in 172nd place on the list. The wealth of Yang Huiyan and family of Country Garden Holdings fell by 110 billion yuan (about $15.5 billion) compared to last year, the largest drop among Chinese billionaires.
A total of 1,305 individuals and families with wealth of more than 5 billion yuan (about $940 million) made the 2022 Hurun annual list, a decrease of 160 individuals, and an 11 percent drop, compared with 2021, and the largest decrease in the number of wealthy people in history.
The total wealth of entrepreneurs on the list adds up to 24.5 trillion yuan (about $3.45 billion), down 18 percent from 2021. The number of entrepreneurs with a net worth of over 100 billion yuan (about $14 billion) decreased from 45 in 2021 to 34.
According to the Hurun Research Institute, there are 293 people absent from this year’s list, and 14 percent of them are involved in the real estate industry, ranking first in all industries.
The Xu Jiayin family of China’s Evergrande Group, the Sun Hongbin family of Unitech, and the Xu Rongmao family of Shimao Group have all fallen out of the top 100.
Evergrande’s Xu Jiayin was formerly number one in the Hurun 100. However, by 2021, his fortune shrank sharply by more than 160 billion yuan (about $30.1 billion), placing him 70th on the list, then further dropped to a net worth of $30 billion yuan (about $4.2 billion) in 2022, ranking him at 172.
Yang Huiyan and Country Garden Holding’s Big Fall
The family of Yang Huiyan, who once ranked 4th on the rich list, slipped to 47th this year, with a total wealth of $75 billion yuan, shrinking by 59 percent, or about 110 billion yuan (about $20.7 billion), and the largest drop in wealth on this year’s list.Yang landed in 4th place in 2017, when she was 36 years old, with a total worth of 160 billion yuan (about $22.5 billion).
On Nov. 8, S&P downgraded Country Garden’s credit rating to B from B+, reflecting the firm’s narrowing access to funding amid the deteriorating confidence in private-run developers in China. S&P then withdrew the issuer credit rating on Country Garden, at the request of the developer.
China’s Real Estate Slump
According to Hu Run, Chairman and Chief Research Officer of Hurun Report, the real estate market has continued to decline this year, and the share prices of the entire real estate sector have experienced big price shocks, leading to a shrinking of wealth.Statistics from the China Real Estate Information Corp (CRIC) show that, in the first 10 months of this year, the total sales of the top 100 real estate companies fell by 43.4 percent year-on-year; the sales of these top 100 companies fell by 2.6 percent from September to October.
Data from the CMI Research Institute also shows that in the first 10 months of this year, there were only 16 real estate enterprises with sales exceeding 100 billion yuan, a 50 percent drop from the same period last year. There were 100 real estate enterprises with sales over 10 billion yuan, 48 fewer than the same period last year.
CMI’s data further revealed that property prices and sales volume in 100 cities across China continued to fall in October. In previous years, September and October were the hottest months for new home sales.
On Oct. 24, the National Bureau of Statistics released the sale prices of residential units in 70 large and medium-sized cities in September, showing 54 cities saw a drop in the prices of new homes.
In the pre-owned housing market, prices have dropped in more than 80 percent of those 70 cities.
According to China Economic Weekly, third-tier cities have become the hardest hit by falling property prices. In September this year, the new home market in 14 third-tier cities and pre-owned housing market in 24 third-tier cities saw prices lower than those of 2020.
Of the 31 second-tier cities, 17 are seeing a weaker new home market this year, and 28 cities are seeing prices falling in the pre-owned market, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
