Hanergy Stock Surge Upends China Wealth Ranking: Li Hejun Is Now No. 1-FORBES.

That was quick.
The ink had barely dried on the 2015 Forbes Billionaires List issue published this week when a 22% surge in the stock price a Chinese solar power firm yesterday led to a change at the top of our ranking of the country’s richest people.
Shares in Hanergy Thin Film Power Group, China’s largest supplier of thin-film solar equipment and products, rose at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange after the company unveiled an upbeat forecast of 2014 net profit and growth in transactions with third-party customers.
After that big gain in the publicly traded company’s shares, Forbes now estimates that Li Hejun, the chairman of Hanergy’s parent company, holds a fortune worth $29.4 billion that makes him No. 1 among China’s richest.

Wang Jianlin, the leader of Dalian Wanda Group who was No. 1 among mainland China’s entrepreneurs when the latest Forbes Billionaires List was unveiled on Monday, has an estimated fortune worth $24.3 billion, nearly the same as on Monday but now ranks  No. 2.
Hanergy said on Tuesday net profit for 2014 is likely to increase by more than 55% from a year earlier. Higher revenue, a larger share of business from third-party customers, and gains from the disposal of five power station projects last year helped last year’s performance.
Hanergy, which until now has done most of its business with its parent company, expects approximately 35% of its revenue for 2014 to come from non-connected transactions, “a significant increase” from last year. It doesn’t provide a figure for 2013.
Investors putting money into Hanergy’s shares have shrugged off two recent reports in the Financial Times that questioned the company’s financial health.  Bolstering its financial reserves, Hanergy just last Friday said it had raised HK$5.46 billion, or $705 million, from the sale of 1.5 billion new shares, representing a 3.48% stake, to Macrolink New Resources at a price of HK$3.64 per share. Hanergy’s shares closed at HK$6.4 today.  Macrolink is a member of the Macrolink Group, a collection of companies with ties to Beijing tycoon Fu Kwan.  Hanergy said in a statement it would use funds raised from the stock sale for future investment and development “when opportunities arise.”
Macrolink New Resources also agreed to purchase $198 million of production equipment that will be used to make solar panels for installation on buildings, Hanergy said in a statement. As part of the agreement, Hanergy will provide services to Macrolink New Resources at a fee of $462 million.
Hanergy, whose business roots trace to the hydropower industry, in recent years has bought at least four Western businesses in a bid to expand achieve business and technology breakthroughs in thin-film solar products.  Its market cap stood at $28 billion after yesterday’s close, compared with just $6 billion for First Solar FSLR -0.19%, the big U.S. thin-film solar maker.
Hanergy’s shares rocketed yesterday amid gains in other environmentally friendly shares following widespread discussion of a new documentary about the country’s pollution problems, “Under the Dome.”   This week alone, two Chinese entrepreneurs in the environmental-protection business have ascended into the ranks of the world’s billionaires after their locally traded shares soared on hopes for more government spending to combat the country’s appalling pollution levels.  Hanergy’s stock price has been on the move for a longer period, however, gaining more than two and a half times since early November.
Wang, the outgoing No. 1 on our list, enjoyed an increase in his wealth to an estimated $24.2 billion  from $15.1 billion a year ago on advances in his property and entertainment businesses.  Since January, shares of his newly listed domestic movie theatre chain Wanda Cinema Line have more than tripled at China’s Shenzhen Stock Exchange; in the past year, stock in Wang’s U.S. theatre chain AMC have gained by about half at the New York Stock Exchange. Last December, Wang’s Hong Kong IPO of his flagship Wanda Commercial Properties was the largest ever by a real estate development firm.
To keep the top spot again this year, Wang beat e-commerce pioneer Jack Ma, who came in second among mainland Chinese on this year’s list with a fortune worth $22.7 billion. Ma’s wealth has increased from $10 billion a year ago on the strength of Alibaba Group’s world-largest listing in New York in September. At that time, Ma, Alibaba’s chairman, ranked as mainland China’s richest man. However, Alibaba shares have plunged 30% from their November peak, and Wang’s fortune surpassed Ma’s again in January.
Wang, a soft-spoken Chinese army veteran and former bureaucrat in the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian, has been busy in the past year adding real estate abroad, announcing luxury projects in Beverly Hills, Chicago and Australia.
Mainland China’s 213 members on this year’s list include some 71 newcomers, accounting for about a quarter of the record 290 new faces on the 2015 Forbes Billionaires List.  Some 19 of the new China members debuted in connection with a backdoor listing or IPO.  The fortunes of China’s richest increased amid 7% economic growth in 2014, along one of the world’s largest stock rallies of the past year. The number of billionaires in mainland China is now only second in the world after the United States.

forbes.