China’s bottled water king is now richer than Warren Buffett

Zhong dethroned India’s Mukesh Ambani as Asia’s wealthiest person last week and is close to entering the rarefied realm of individuals worth more than US$100bil. Buffett (pic) is outside that group with an US$86.2bil fortune, but the Berkshire Hathaway Inc founder has given away more than US$37bil of stock since 2006.

BEIJING: Zhong Shanshan is setting new wealth records.

The chairman of Nongfu Spring Co, a bottled-water company that’s ubiquitous in China, is now richer than Warren Buffett as his fortune surged US$13.5bil since the start of the year to US$91.7bil on Tuesday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.