Asia Has New Richest Woman – India’s Savitri Jindal

Yang Huiyan is no longer Asia’s richest woman as China’s property crisis hammers the nation’s developers, including her Country Garden Holdings Co.

Yang on Friday was surpassed in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index by India’s Savitri Jindal, who has an $11.3 billion fortune thanks to her conglomerate Jindal Group, which is involved in industries including metals and power generation. She also slipped below fellow Chinese tycoon Fan Hongwei, whose wealth derives from chemical-fiber company Hengli Petrochemical Co.

Yang Huiyan is no longer Asia’s richest woman as China’s property crisis hammers the nation’s developers, including her Country Garden Holdings Co.

Yang on Friday was surpassed in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index by India’s Savitri Jindal, who has an $11.3 billion fortune thanks to her conglomerate Jindal Group, which is involved in industries including metals and power generation. She also slipped below fellow Chinese tycoon Fan Hongwei, whose wealth derives from chemical-fiber company Hengli Petrochemical Co.

Jindal’s net worth has fluctuated wildly in recent years. It fell to $3.2 billion in April 2020 at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, then reached as high as $15.6 billion in April 2022 as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent commodity prices soaring.

Fan, 55, has also seen her fortune drop this year, but she’s held up better than some other billionaires in China. It reflects the diversity of her business empire, which has its origins in a bankrupt state-owned textile factory in Wujiang, in the eastern Jiangsu province.

Originally an accountant, Fan established Hengli Group in 1994, with her husband, Chen Jianhua, later expanding into polyester, petrochemicals, oil refining and tourism. The group reported 732.3 billion yuan ($109 billion) in revenue last year. Chen’s personal fortune is estimated at $6.4 billion by the Bloomberg wealth index.