China's wealthiest entrepreneurs suffered tens of billions of dollars in losses in the share value of their companies in the past month as the coronavirus pandemic roiled financial markets worldwide and threatened to tip the global economy into a recession.
The destruction of wealth as the coronavirus spread to six continents has spared few companies, with airlines, energy producers and bricks-and-mortar retailers among the hardest hit in recent days, as investors shed everything from stocks to bonds in favour of cash. Those outflows have even caught up some of China's biggest tech names despite analysts' expectations that they would benefit in the first quarter from people working from home in China and optimism over a declining level of infections in the country in recent weeks.
Tencent founder Pony Ma Huateng, the second-richest man in China last year, lost some US$5.5 billion since February 19 based on the value of the technology giant's Hong Kong shares. While not as broad a decline as American indices, the benchmark Hang Seng Index has dropped 17.5 per cent in that period.
Yang Huiyan, co-chairwoman of real estate developer Country Garden Holdings and China's richest woman; Colin Huang, the founder and CEO of e-commerce company Pinduoduo; and NetEase founder William Ding Lei also have been big losers in terms of the value of their companies' shares in the past month.