Zhang Yiming, the founder of TikTok's parent company ByteDance, has become China's richest person for the first time. Zhang ranked first among Chinese billionaires and third among Asian billionaires.
According to Bloomberg News, on that day, Zhang Yiming's net worth was estimated at $57.5 billion (approximately 84.6 trillion won) based on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
As a result, Zhang Yiming has surpassed Zhong Shanshan, founder of the bottled water company Nongfu Spring, and Ma Huateng, co-founder of Tencent Holdings, to become China's number one wealthy individual, Bloomberg reported.
According to Bloomberg, the corporate value of ByteDance was reassessed at $36.5 billion, leading to an increase of over $10 billion in Zhang Yiming's assets. This is based on evaluations from investors such as BlackRock, Fidelity, and T. Rowe Price, as well as an analysis of ByteDance's employee stock buyback plan.
Bloomberg reported that Zhang Yiming is currently ranked third among Asian billionaires, following Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries in India, and Gautam Adani, chairman of the Adani Group in India.
Zhang Yiming, a Chinese national residing in Singapore, holds a 21% equity stake in ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, which has over 1 billion users.