For years, her wealth has been the focus of headlines, commentary and calculations beyond China.
At just 41, Yang Huiyan is not only the richest woman in the country, but also the richest in all of Asia.
His fortune has continued to grow since he inherited a real estate empire from his father over a decade ago. But in 2022 the situation changed: last year it suffered a real decline. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, his net worth has fallen by more than 52% over the past year.
In 2021, Bloomberg estimated the businesswoman’s net worth at about US$33.9 billion (about 173 billion reais), down from last July’s estimates of about US$16.1 billion (about 80 billion reais).
Economic analysts saw this not only as a gloomy sign for the state of China’s real estate market, but also as an important warning for the future of the world’s second largest economy.
This is because the country’s real estate sector is facing serious problems with falling house prices, falling demand from buyers and a credit crunch that has been affecting some major real estate developers since 2020.
The situation reached such a point that even some banks ran out of money, leading to protests in some cities of the Asian country.
And while Yang remains the richest woman in Asia, her position is faltering.
She is followed by chemical fiber entrepreneur Fan Hongwei, who also has assets worth around $16 billion, according to Bloomberg.
But who is Yang Huiyan and how did she come to be one of the biggest fortunes in the world?
Born in 1981 in Shuntak, a district of the city of Foshan in the southern Chinese province of Guangzhou, Yang is the daughter of one of the richest men in the Asian country: Yang Guoqiang.
Raised in one of the most powerful families in China, she received an excellent education and was sent to the United States in her youth. She graduated from Ohio State University in 2003 with a degree in Arts and Sciences.
Upon her return to China, she inherited from his father in 2007 the majority of shares in Country Garden Holdings, the largest real estate developer in China in the sale.
Founded in Guangzhou in 1992, Country Garden Holdings became successful after its Hong Kong IPO, raising around $1.6 billion, about the same as Google did after its US IPO in 2004.
Although Yang is known for staying out of the public eye and living a lowkey life, he is the center of countless headlines inside and outside of China.
One of the most notorious cases occurred in 2018 when leaked legal documents known as “The Cyprus Papers” showed that she had been granted Cypriot citizenship in 2018, although China does not recognize dual citizenship.
Chinese market researchers describe Yang as a creative woman with business acumen.
In June last year, the International Hospitality Institute included her in its ranking of the most powerful people in the global hospitality industry.
However, his business was already showing signs of weakness.
The situation in the real estate market in the country has been complicated since 2020, not only because of the coronavirus pandemic, but also because the Chinese authorities tried to curb excessive debt in the real estate sector. That left the big builders in a fight to make the payments and forced them to renegotiate with their creditors.
The crisis deepened when Evergrande, China’s most indebted real estate company, defaulted on its dollardenominated bonds in late 2021 after months of liquidity problems.
The Chinese real estate giant Evergrande is once again suspending its stock exchange operations
In the aftermath and so far this year, several other major developers including Kaisa and Shimao Group have also filed for bankruptcy protection.
The crisis has deepened in recent weeks after a “buyers’ strike” was reported after thousands of people defaulted on their mortgages due to delays in the start of construction on their homes. With the delay in the delivery of houses, developers did not begin to receive mortgage payments on time.
All of this meant that Country Garden, which was doing well in the early months of the pandemic, also faced a liquidity problem, forcing it to sell shares at a nearly 13% discount last July to raise funds.
And the longterm prospects don’t look good for Yang, her fortune, or the company she represents.
In a report last July, rating agency S&P estimated that home sales in China could fall by a third this year due to mortgage strikes, a collective movement in which buyers decided to suspend mortgage payments on properties under construction, according to the delivery schedule.
Meanwhile, Capital Economics, an independent economic research firm based in London, predicted that “without sales, many other developers will collapse, posing a financial and economic threat” to China.
This text was originally published at https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/internacional62512753