Billionaire actress Zhao Wei splashes out 3b yuan on animation firm
Longwei Culture & Media buys controlling stake in little-known Shenzhen-listed animation studio Zhejiang People Culture
Billionaire actress and celebrity investor Zhao Wei has made her biggest stock purchase in years, splashing out a staggering three billion yuan (HK$3.34 billion) to acquire a little-known animation company listed in Shenzhen.
Just after the Christmas weekend Longwei Culture & Media, owned by the Chinese star who is one of the wealthiest actresses on the planet, said it had agreed to buy 29 per cent of Zhejiang People Culture to assume control of the animation and mobile gaming producer.
That is set to be the largest equity investment by the 40-year-old former kindergarten teacher after she and her Singaporean husband’s HK$3.1 billion purchase of Jack Ma’s Alibaba Pictures in 2014 that helped them pocket tens of millions dollars of gains over the past two years.
Zhao has become a household name in China since the 1990s thanks to her hit drama My Fair Princess but it has not been until the past few years that her skyrocketing fortune propelled her into China’s ultra wealthy club.
Jointly named by Hurun Report as the 35th richest young billionaires , Zhao and her husband Huang Youlong are estimated to boast a net worth of US$1 billion, according to the ranking released in February.