Zeng Yuqun, the founder of the world’s biggest electric-vehicle battery maker, has overtaken Jack Ma in the wealth rankings, a symbolic moment in the rise of China’s green billionaires. Zeng’s net worth has jumped to $49.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as shares of Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. surged this year. That exceeds Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. co-founder Ma’s wealth of $48.1 billion and makes Zeng one of the five richest people in Asia for the first time. It’s the latest sign of how a new generation of tycoons in China is amassing vast fortunes in the clean-energy boom. Investors have pushed up stocks such as CATL, a key supplier to Tesla Inc., as the country leads the market for electric-vehicle sales and pursues an ambitious policy of reaching carbon neutrality in 2060.
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After years of squabbling over everything from soybeans and viruses to technology and Taiwan, it now looks like Beijing and Washington may be on the same page about one thing: US-listed Chinese companies.
America’s most hawkish China watchers have been banging on about variable-interest entities for years. This mutant corporate structure evolved from a decades-old rule that prevents foreigners from owning various types of mainland businesses, notably in the internet sector. Foreign investors end up holding bits of what amount to shell companies.
Critics, from noted short seller Carson Block to Florida Senator Marco Rubio, have been looking for ways to limit or reform US-listed Chinese companies, most of which use the VIE structure. They often highlight the sketchy relationship between shareholders and the entities they supposedly own.
Zeng’s net worth has jumped to $49.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as shares of Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. surged this year. That exceeds Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. co-founder Ma’s wealth of $48.1 billion and makes Zeng one of the five richest people in Asia for the first time.
It’s the latest sign of how a new generation of tycoons in China is amassing vast fortunes in the clean-energy boom. Investors have pushed up stocks such as CATL, a key supplier to Tesla Inc., as the country leads the market for electric-vehicle sales and pursues an ambitious policy of reaching carbon neutrality in 2060.
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