China has the world’s most super-rich in a volatile 2018

Which city in the world has the most billionaires in United States dollars? The answer is Beijing, despite the numbers of super-rich in China’s capital dropping in the last year.

Beijing came out on top thanks to the rise of young technology entrepreneurs. The capital city had the most tycoons at 103, down 28 on last year, according to Hurun Global Rich List.

That’s more than New York, which has 92. The number of tycoons in the US may be less than China, but the rich list was again dominated by Americans.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos topped the list with a net worth of close to 1 trillion yuan (US$150 billion), followed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates (650 billion yuan) and investment guru and Berkshire Hathaway owner Warren Buffett (590 billion yuan), according to the widely-watched rich list generated by Hurun.

To round off the list by cities, Hong Kong (69), Shenzhen (67) and Shanghai (66) ranked third to fifth, edging out London, which had 65 tycoons with more than US$1 billion in net worth.

Despite four top China cities – including Hong Kong – dominating the rich list, a record of 213 billionaires in China dropped out, leaving 658 in 2019 as the Chinese equity markets experienced their worst stock market in four years.

Hurun Reporter founder Rupert Hoogewerf said: “A big drop in the Chinese stock market coupled with a 6% drop in the Chinese yuan were the main causes of the drop in [the number of billionaires from] China.”

The global markets wiped out a combined US$1 trillion in the fortunes from the world’s richest people last year.

The richest man in China is Alibaba Group chief Jack Ma Yun, who had a net worth of 260 billion yuan, ranking him 22nd on the rich list. He trumped rival Pony Ma Huateng of Tencent Holdings, whose poor shares performance hurt his net worth of 255.5 billion yuan, ranking him 24th.

The third richest man was China Evergrande chairman Hui Ka-yan, who had 255 billion yuan, topping Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-shing, who retired last year with a 200 billion yuan net worth.

Jack Ma also stands to retire this September, but is expected to make more noise in the international political arena.