Yang Huiyan, the chair of real-estate giant Country Garden and one of China's richest women, has lost more wealth than any billionaire in the world in the past two years, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, as her building conglomerate sits on the edge of default.
Her net worth has plunged 84% since June 2021, or $28.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires index.
Yang's current net worth is $5.5 billion, the biggest dollar decline for the world's richest people over that period, placing her at #475 on the Bloomberg ranking. She lost $490 million on Tuesday alone, according to the index.
Country Garden, once China's largest developer, missed interest payments on two US dollar-denominated bonds, reports said Tuesday, troubling investors as China's sinking property sector takes yet another hit. Shares in the construction giant have plunged 16% in Hong Kong as a result.
CNN has reached out to Country Garden for comment.
Collapse in confidence
State-owned media outlet Paper.cn, citing an anonymous company source, reported that Country Garden suffered "temporary liquidity pressure" due to deteriorating sales and a difficult refinancing environment. It was "actively" seeking funds to resolve the debt crunch and would protect the legitimate rights of creditors, the person was quoted as saying.
Country Garden still has a 30-day grace period before would be labeled as a defaulter.
China's once-booming real estate industry accounted for as much as 30% of the country's GDP. But many major developers racked up huge debts, typified by the collapse two years ago of Evergrande which was followed by a wave of defaults across the industry.
Country Garden hit the public market in 2007 with a record-setting, headline-grabbing $1.7 billion IPO in Hong Kong. In March of this year, Yang succeeded her father Yang Guoqiang as chairman of the company that he had founded.
