E-commerce giant Alibaba's founder Jack Ma topped the 2018 Hurun China Rich List released on Wednesday, the second time he has reached this pinnacle of wealth in the past four years.
Ma and his family's wealth increased by $10 billion to $39 billion, on the back of a hike in the valuation of online payment arm Alipay's mothership Ant Financial.
Alibaba's market value reached $390 billion by the end of September, making it the most valuable company established in China and one of the 10 largest companies globally. The value of Ant Financial exceeded $100 billion.
Last year's No 1, Xu Jiayin, chairman of real estate developer Evergrande Group, was demoted to second place this year, with his wealth shrinking $6 billion to $36 billion. However, his company's sales in the first half of this year rose 25 percent to exceed $40 billion.
Technology giant Tencent's founder Pony Ma dropped one place to third with a personal wealth of $35 billion. This is the first time that his fortune has shrunk since he first made it onto the list in 2005.
Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher at Hurun Report, said this can be largely attributed to Tencent's share price decline due to the central regulator's tighter controls on the total number of digital games in the market.
