Zhong Shanshan saw his wealth shrink by 120 billion yuan in one year, falling from the position of the richest man to the second place.

On October 27, Hurun Research Institute released the *Hurun China Rich List 2026*. Zhong Shanshan, founder of Nongfu Spring who once topped the list of China's richest people four times, saw his wealth shrink by 120 billion yuan, ranking second with 410 billion yuan.

According to Jiemian News, Zhong Shanshan's wealth increased by 190 billion yuan in 2025, making him the richest person in China for the fourth time with 530 billion yuan. Based on this calculation, his wealth has dropped by about 23% over the past year.

Previously, he became the richest person in China in 2021, 2022 and 2023 respectively with a wealth of 500 billion yuan, 455 billion yuan and 465 billion yuan.

Zhong Shanshan currently serves as the founder, chairman and general manager of Nongfu Spring, and also the chairman of Yangshengtang Co., Ltd. His net worth almost all comes from two core listed company assets: "consumer goods + healthcare".

Among them, Nongfu Spring is the foundation of his wealth, from which about 80% of his wealth comes. Zhong Shanshan directly holds 66.82% of Nongfu Spring's shares through the holding Yangshengtang Co., Ltd., plus about 17.15% of the shares he holds directly personally, he controls a total of about 84% of the equity. Recently, Nongfu Spring's core packaged drinking water business remains stable. As of the press time of Jiemian News, its latest total market value is HK$458.9 billion.

Wantai Biotech was once the core booster for Zhong Shanshan's rapid wealth growth in the past few years, but now it has become the source of the shrinkage.

According to the latest announcement in September 2026, Zhong Shanshan indirectly holds 55.82% of Wantai Biotech's shares through Yangshengtang, and personally holds 15.10% of the shares. His total shareholding ratio still exceeds 70%, and he has always been the actual controller of the company.

In terms of capital market performance, Wantai Biotech's latest total market value is 30.08 billion yuan, and its stock price has continued to decline throughout the year. The cumulative decline during the year has exceeded 40%.

It is understood that this is the 28th consecutive time that Hurun Research Institute has released the China Rich List since 1999. The cut-off date for calculating the wealth of entrepreneurs on this year's list is September 1. A total of 1,529 entrepreneurs with personal wealth of more than 5 billion yuan made the list this year, an increase of 95 over last year, hitting a record high in the number of people on the list; the total wealth of the listed entrepreneurs reached 32 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7%. Among them, the number of entrepreneurs with wealth of 100 billion yuan increased by 2 to 43, and the number of entrepreneurs with wealth of 10 billion yuan increased by 69 to 819.

Rupert Hoogewerf, Chairman and Chief Research Officer of Hurun Group, said that a large number of entrepreneurial entrepreneurs have emerged in strategic emerging industries such as AI, semiconductors, robots, and innovative drugs, which reflects the vigorous vitality of the entrepreneur group participating in the Chinese path to modernization, and shows the market changes in the process of China's economy achieving effective qualitative improvement and reasonable quantitative growth.

The Hurun China Rich List 2026 shows that the top 10 entrepreneurs with the largest wealth growth (including new entrants) contributed more than half of the total 2.1 trillion yuan wealth increment of the entire list, mainly from the AI and semiconductor industries.

In terms of residence distribution, the listed entrepreneurs present a "3+2+3" pattern. Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing occupy the top three in "entrepreneur density". Among them, Shenzhen ranks first for the first time with 177 listed entrepreneurs, an increase of 30 over last year. Shanghai ranks second with 161, an increase of 9 over last year; Beijing ranks third with 140, a decrease of 6 over last year. Hong Kong (102, +3) and Hangzhou (88, +4) rank fourth and fifth respectively; Suzhou (61, +13) and Guangzhou (61, +1) tie for sixth, and Taipei (58, +5) ranks eighth.

This year, Shenzhen, Suzhou and Shanghai are the three cities with the largest increase in the number of listed entrepreneurs. Hong Kong has exceeded 100 for the first time. The number of listed entrepreneurs in Shenzhen has increased the most, mainly due to the agglomeration of technology industries such as semiconductors, AI and robots, and the recovery of the A-share technology sector.

Women entrepreneurs on this year's list account for 23.2%, up 0.8% from last year, of which more than 70% are self-made. Zhou Qunfei of Lens Technology became the richest woman in China with 127 billion yuan.

The largest number of entrepreneurs on the list are Zhejiang merchants, Cantonese merchants and Jiangsu merchants, followed by Hunan merchants and Fujian merchants. Specifically, there are 202 Zhejiang merchants, 149 Cantonese merchants, 126 Jiangsu merchants, 77 Hunan merchants and 65 Fujian merchants.

The average age of the listed entrepreneurs is 61 years old. Among the self-made entrepreneurs, the oldest is 98-year-old Li Ka-shing, and the youngest is 31-year-old Zhang Junjie of Ba Wang Cha Ji.

This article is from "Jiemian News", reported by Jiang Yiman JYM, and published with authorization from 36Kr.