When Nina Wang, the infamous pigtailed businesswoman, died on April 4th, she still managed to claim the title of "the richest woman in Asia." Forbes valued her total assets at $4.2 billion. That title was all but lost a little over two weeks after her death, but was not realized until now.
Yang Huiyan, it turns out, is the richest person in China, as well as the richest woman in Asia. She is 26-years-old. She is the president of Country Garden Holdings Company Limited (HKG:2007), a Guangzhou-based developer that specializes in building villas, townhouse and apartments. Since its IPO on April 20th, share prices soared from HK$5.38 to HK$13.16, creating 5 billionaires in the process. Yang, who inherited most of her stake from her father, now has personal assets of over $16 billion.
To compare, Bill Gates, the wealthiest person in the world, has a net worth of around $56 billion. Li Ka-shing, arguable the richest man in Asia, has assets of over $23 billion. This means that Yang does not make it into the top 30 richest person in the world (she is in fact the 37th).
However, and perhaps more interestingly, she is the richest person under 30-years-old, and one of the richest under 40 (Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) have seen their fortune rise in recent days with Google's expansion overseas and acquisitions of up-and-coming companies).
Anyway, enough with the riches. What Forbes keeps remind us is that the tech and real estate industries are the fast tracks. Anyone want to agree?
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