China has dominated a list of self-made women billionaires – for the eighth year running – with Chinese women taking the top four places on the rich list.
Private Banker International’s sister website, Verdict, recently highlighted the trend, which is based on information is from a rich list compiled by publishers Hurun.
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Half of the top 10 richest self-made women in the world are from China and 28 of the 50 women listed.
Zhou Qunfei, the founder of a major smartphone screen maker, Lens Technology whose client list includes Apple and Samsung, was found to be the richest self-made woman, with a fortune of $9.8 billion. She also topped the list in 2015.
Qunfei recently ranked in Forbes list of the world’s 16th richest woman overall, with her richer counterparts having inherited or married wealth.
In second place was real-estate tycoon Wu Yajun from the western city of Chongqing, who is worth $9.3 billion after her wealth leapt 83% in the last 12 months.
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By GlobalDataYajun beat out another female real-estate developer, Chen Lihua who topped self-made female rich list in 2017, slipped to third place after her wealth grew only slightly to $8.1 billion from $7.2 billion from last year.
Beijing-born Lihua runs the investment company FuWah and is married to popular Chinese TV star Chi Zhongrui.
Non-Chinese contenders
The non-Chinese contenders on the list included American Diane Hendricks, the co-founder of Wisconsin-based roofing supply company ABC Supply, one of the US’s largest distributors of roofing and windows.
India, had only one woman entrepreneur on the list — Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw who runs Bangalore based pharmaceutical giant Biocon.
Women made up 15% of the 2018 Global Rich List, the same proportion as last year with a total of 32 more female self-made billionaires at 184 up from 152.
Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of the Hurun Report said:
“The world today has the best part of 6,000 US dollar billionaires, assuming that for every one we found, we have probably at least one if not more, particularly from the Gulf states.”
Hoogewerf added: “A boom in China, a weak dollar and a 26% hike in Nasdaq have led to a surge in dollar billionaires across the world. The US dollar depreciated 16% against the Euro, 12% against the British Pound, 10% against the Chinese Yuan and 6% against the Indian Rupee.
“Global economic growth was at 3% last year, the fastest rate since 2011 and a significant acceleration compared with 2.4% the previous year.”
Hurun pulled out some interesting statistics from its report:
- The Olympian Billionaires. Agnete Kirk Thinggaard ($3 billion) is a Danish Olympic dressage rider, who represented Denmark at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro where she finished 26th in the individual and 6th in the team competition.
- The oldest on the list is Chee Chen Tung of Johnson Electric aged 100.
- Divorce: London divorce court ruled in favour of Tatiana Akhmedova, entitling her of 41.5 percent share of Farkhad Akhmedov’s $1.8bn. Farkhad has not settled yet.
- 57% of billionaires derived their wealth from listed companies
