Topic
Nongfu Spring is a beverage company controlled by China's richest person, Zhong Shanshan. The company dominates the bottled water market in China, with nearly one in every three bottles sold in the country bearing the company's iconic green mountain logo. The company also produces packaged tea, coffee and fruit juices.
- Boycott by vocal internet users over perceived transgressions has put China’s biggest water company, Nongfu Spring, under a firestorm of criticism
- With nationalist sentiment quick to anger and slow to forgive, many wonder whether other private companies will be next, stifling growth
Hang Seng Indexes Company, the compiler of Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index, has added Nongfu Spring, China’s largest bottled-water seller, personal computer maker Lenovo to the benchmark in its latest quarterly review, it said on Friday.
Five Chinese stocks are the common picks of analysts at CICC and China Renaissance as the index compiler prepares to unveil its rebalancing outcome on Friday.
Hong Kong’s most sought-after IPO in 2020 beats analysts’ expectations with its first post-IPO earnings report. Billionaire founder Zhong Shanshan pledges to build its presence in the premium drinks segment to underpin growth.
Nongfu Spring’s Zhong Shanshan might have booted Tencent’s Pony Ma from the top spot – he even briefly overtook Mukesh Ambani as ‘Asia’s richest man’ – but he might not keep his crown for long …
Zhong Shanshan started out in journalism, farmed prawns and sold turtle pills before founding Nongfu Spring, the bottled water empire that would make him a multi-billionaire
Zhong Shanshan, the chairman of Nongfu Spring, has survived hardships and controversies to make oceans of money out of bottled water
The Chinese entrepreneur made US$71 billion in 2020 alone from making vaccines and his Nongfu Spring water – but he used to be a mushroom farmer and dropped out of high school
The success of Nongfu’s IPO turned its founder into China’s richest individual, while the chairwoman of Blue Moon became one of the mainland’s richest women.
Hong Kong and China stocks gained on Tuesday, after Chinese water bottler Nongfu Spring’s stellar trading debut offset a correction in technology stocks as well as a threat by US President Donald Trump to scale back economic ties between the United States and China.
Nongfu Spring has become a record-breaking IPO in Hong Kong after it locked up as much as HK$677 billion – about a third of Hong Kong’s daily cash in circulation – in capital from small investors.
Overwhelming response to Nongfu’s IPO is a sign Hong Kong’s capital market is roaring ahead in defiance of recession, a coronavirus pandemic and political unrest.
The listing will represent back-to-back capital market success for founder Zhong Shanshan, who also controls 75 per cent of Covid-19 test kit maker Beijing Wantai that raised US$49 million in a Shanghai IPO in April.