China, home of the world’s largest number of Internet users, has minted its latest Internet billionaire.
Sun Deliang, 42, chairman of Zhejiang NetSun entered the world’s billionaire ranks this week following the near tripling of its stock price in the past year at the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
Hangzhou-headquartered NetSun operates specialized “vertical” e-commerce sites for the chemical, textile and pharmaceutical industries
Revenue for the first nine months of 2014 was 125.4 million yuan, or $20 million, down 23% for a year earlier. Net profit in first nine month last year was 29.4 million yuan, or $5 million, up 4.4%. The company is trading at a nose-bleeding 300-plus times its likely earnings this year, analysts say.
NetSun has gained on a huge wave of investor buying of e-commerce and IT companies. Sun’s 44% stake in NetSun worth $1.1 billion at yesterday’s closing price of 79.6 yuan.
China has been one of the world’s top sources of new billionaires in the past decade. The Forbes China Rich List published last October had a record 242 billionaires, led by e-commerce entrepreneur Jack Ma of Alibaba. Ma currently ranks No. 2 on the Forbes real-time billionaires list among listees from China.
Sun founded a professional chemical industry website “ChinaChemNet” in 1997, which became the predecessor business of NetSun.
– with Maggie Chen
– Follow me on Twitter @rflannerychina
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