China’s richest man Zhong Shanshan is an oddball in the world’s richest club

Following its successful listing on the Hang Seng, Nongfu Spring founder Zhong Shanshan has emerged rather surprisingly as China’s richest man. What makes the event unusual is that his company is neither a tech giant nor a pharma major nor even a retail behemoth. Its principal product, bottled water, is as mundane as it gets and hardly unique in any way.

Nongfu also produces bottled tea and juices but the real success comes from the millions of bottles of clean water it sells through its vast and hugely efficient distribution network to discerning Chinese customers wary of tap water in a country that has witnessed major incidents of pollution in its rivers.

Nearly 25 years ago, Ramesh Chauhan launched bottled mineral water in India under the Bisleri brand name. The circumstances then were similar and Chauhan went on to make millions from the business, but while highly profitable, it wasn't enough to carry him to the top of the rich league.

Zhong’s achievement, even if it is likely to be short lived, confers on him the unique distinction of being the only one from this business to be a country’s richest person. That China’s richest person would be into a business like bottled water is itself an oddity but a look at the others from each country shows that it isn’t an exception.

Thanks to the website, it is possible to see some patterns as well as spot outliers like Zhong. Of the 72 major countries on the map created by the site (with data as of April 2020), the largest number were clubbed under the category of diversified. Unfortunately that doesn’t really reveal much except that these billionaires certainly don’t believe in sticking to their core competence but have been happy to take advantage of any and every business opportunity that has come along. There may also be some significance to the fact that the three richest continents, North America, Europe and Oceania account for only five of the 16 in this diversified list.

Not surprisingly, the next biggest chunk, 13 in number, is from finance & investments but again the spread isn’t uniform. Thus while four of the seven richest among South American countries have finance & investments as their main business, only one of the 22 countries in Asia, Indonesia, has its richest person in this category.

Fashion & retail, the next highest in the list isn’t a surprise with as many as nine of the countries’ richest people making their billions from this sector. Expectedly, Europe with six, accounts for the bulk of the numbers in this category. Even the countries are predictable - Sweden, France, Spain, Germany, Monaco and Denmark. You would have expected Italy to be in this list if not dominate it but the country’s richest person Giovanni Ferrero is into his family business of food & beverages which churns out the well-known chocolate brand.

The remaining three are scattered across Asia, South America and Africa where billionaire Nathan Kirsh of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) has built a billion dollar fortune thanks to his holding in the New York-based Jetro Holdings, which owns restaurant supply stores Jetro Cash and Carry and Restaurant Depot.

Metals & mining is the next highest category with six representatives. Even a cursory look at the names of the countries shows why that should raise no eyebrows. Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Australia and Chile are rich in mineral wealth and their biggest billionaires reflect that.

The shocker is that despite the fact that we live in a world so dominated by technology only four countries have their richest persons from the sector, seven if you include telecom. Even that number should go down by one if you take out Jeff Bezos whose business is funnily listed as technology when retail would be a more appropriate classification for Amazon.

Significantly, just four of the billionaires on the list have their fortunes rooted in manufacturing and energy and that includes India's richest person. Even a few decades ago one would have expected the maximum number from these two critical sectors. But in a clear sign of the changing nature of global business, energy is no longer the biggest driver of the global economy and manufacturing isn’t as lucrative either.