Chinese tycoons lose US$34b as China stock market slumps

Hong Kong

THE worst monthly slump in Chinese stocks in two years wiped away more than US$34 billion in combined net worth of the richest people in China and Hong Kong in June.

Of those 45 wealthy people on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, more than 80 per cent lost money in June as the Shanghai Composite Index tumbled.

"The fortunes of billionaires are closely tied to the rise and fall of stocks," said Zhang Lu, a Shanghai-based analyst at Capital Securities Corp. "When the market is more unstable, like now, their fortunes go down."

Zhou Qunfei, chairman of Lens Technology Co, saw her wealth shrink the most among all Chinese billionaires. Her fortune shrank by US$4.8 billion in June a…