Fortune teller

Rupert Hoogewerf looks pale and a little fragile after what he says was a busy night socialising. But as a man who makes it his business to know what people are worth - the British accountant has compiled a list of the mainland's wealthiest people for years - the schmoozing is par for the course.

Hoogewerf (pronounced Hoojwerf), who was in Beijing recently to attend a private banking conference, says the event made him think about which businesses would profit most from the growing number of millionaires in China. 'Who is going to really make money out of these people?' he asks rhetorically. 'Cartier? Well, they'll sell a few watches. Armani, Zegna? Yes, they'll make something. No, the people who are really going to make money are the [international] private bankers.'

His Chinese name, Hurun, has become household currency as a result of his Hurun Rich List. He first put together an annual list of the mainland's wealthiest people in 1999 in collaboration Forbes, but their alliance ended after four years when the magazine dropped him to compile its own rankings.

However, Hoogewerf's now independently issued list is still widely anticipated, offering a glimpse of the mainland's super rich, who enjoy more anonymity than those in the west.

He was inspired to start the rich list because he wanted to reveal a unique aspect of rapidly changing China, he says. What could he say that journalists weren't saying or tourists seeing for themselves on the streets? The answer was to focus on private wealth, a tradition that runs in his British-Luxembourgian family. And it's not their wealth but their stories that fascinate him, says Hoogewerf, who studied Chinese and Japanese at Durham University and arrived in the mainland 14 years ago to work for Arthur Andersen.

What's remarkable about the mainland's swelling ranks of super rich is that so many are self-made tycoons. They include Peng Xiaofeng of LDK Solar, who is ranked No6 on his list with personal wealth of US$5.3 billion, and Robin Li Yanhong of Baidu, who is ranked 29th with US$2.4 billion. And their average age is just 47 compared to the global average of 62 estimated by Forbes. 'The stories of these people tell the story of modern China,' says Hoogewerf.