WhereIsAtlas · China
What Happened to Zong Qinghou's Fortune?
He dropped out of school, sold ice from a bicycle and became China's richest man. A year after he died, his family was in court over US$1.8 billion — and the company he built had a new chairman.
Zong Qinghou (1945-2024) was born poor, left school early, and built the Hangzhou Wahaha Group into China's largest beverage company, becoming the country's richest man in 2010. He died in February 2024. His daughter Zong Fuli took over, resigned in October 2025, and was replaced by Xu Simin. Three people described in court proceedings as half-siblings are claiming a share of the estate; in July 2026 a Hong Kong court maintained a freeze on US$1.8 billion of assets. Zong Fuli retains a 29 per cent stake.
He really did start with nothing
This one is not a myth. Zong Qinghou was born on 11 October 1945 into a poor family and was forced to drop out of middle school [1]. He was sent to work at a salt farm in Zhoushan during the sent-down years, reading Mao's collected works in his spare time — the detail behind his nickname, "the cloth-shoe richest man," and behind his claim that he lived on less than US$6,000 a year [1][9].
He returned to Hangzhou in 1979 when his mother, a schoolteacher, retired, and could only find menial work at a local school. In 1987 he took over a small grocery operating out of that school, selling soft drinks, ice and stationery. With two retired schoolteachers he borrowed 140,000 yuan and started producing milk drinks [1].
That is the whole of the founding capital. Everything else — Wahaha becoming China's largest beverage manufacturer — was built from there.
The French partner that became an enemy
In 1996 Wahaha entered a joint venture with Groupe Danone. Danone put in US$70 million for 51 per cent of five joint ventures, and a trademark agreement gave those ventures the exclusive rights to produce and sell under the Wahaha name [1]. By 2007 the partnership had grown to 39 entities.
Then it broke. Danone accused Wahaha of running a parallel set of companies with near-identical products that siphoned off as much as US$100 million from the partnership. Zong resigned as chairman of the joint ventures in June 2007, and the dispute went to litigation. Danone exited in 2009 [1][8].
Zong's public image was built on that fight: the Chinese entrepreneur standing up to a French multinational. It was dented in 2008 when it emerged he had held a US green card, and again when the magazine Caijing reported he was being investigated over alleged tax evasion of some 300 million yuan — he had already paid more than 200 million yuan in back taxes in late 2007 [1].
The richest man who said he lived on $6,000 a year
The wealth was not in doubt. Forbes named him China's richest man in 2010, and Hurun ranked him the country's richest in 2012 and second-richest in 2013. By March 2022 his net worth was estimated at US$8.7 billion [1][11]. He was a delegate to the National People's Congress from 2002 to 2018, and he cultivated an image of extreme frugality, attributing his thrift to Mao's teachings [1].
He died in Hangzhou on 25 February 2024, aged 78 [1][11].
What the death revealed
The frugal-Maoist persona did not survive him intact. Reporting after his death described a second, previously undisclosed family and property abroad. Three people — Zong Jichang, Zong Jieli and Zong Jisheng — came forward as his children and filed proceedings in Hong Kong and mainland China over alleged offshore trusts [3][7].
It is worth being precise about what has and has not been established. The characterization of these three as half-siblings comes from the court proceedings and from press coverage; it is contested, and it is not a final factual finding. What is established is that the claims exist, that they are being litigated in two jurisdictions, and that in July 2026 a Hong Kong court rejected Zong Fuli's application for leave to appeal and maintained a freeze on US$1.8 billion in assets, with costs of HK$250,000 [3][7].
The succession, in two acts
Zong Fuli, his acknowledged daughter by his first wife Shi Youzhen, had been prepared for the role: educated at Pepperdine University in California, she returned to China and in 2007 began the process of renouncing the US citizenship she had acquired [1].
She took over as chairwoman after her father's death. She did not last two years. She resigned as chairwoman in October 2025 — a year after taking over — and in November 2025 the former legal executive Xu Simin formally assumed the roles of legal representative, chairman and general manager [3][4][5][6]. Zong Fuli kept a 29 per cent stake while the disputes continued.
So the second act is the unusual one for a family business: the founder's chosen heir is out of the chair, replaced by an executive from inside the company rather than from inside the family, while the family fights on as shareholders.
Who actually owns Wahaha
The story is usually told as a private empire built by one man. The ownership is more mixed than that. A Hangzhou district state-owned investment arm has long been reported as the largest single shareholder in Wahaha Group, at about 46 per cent, and Chinese media have noted that this shareholder received no dividends for three years [10].
Employees, through a shareholding body, are also part of the structure. So "China's richest man" built a company in which he was never the majority owner — a detail that reframes both the "private tycoon" narrative and the question of who the inheritance dispute is actually about.
What it adds up to
Zong Qinghou's life is the cleanest version of a story people want to believe about China's reform era: genuine poverty, no education, a bicycle, and a fortune. Nothing in his early biography needs embellishing.
The complication is the ending. Within a year of his death his family was in court in two jurisdictions over US$1.8 billion; within two years the daughter he groomed for the job had left the chair; and it emerged that the man who said he lived on US$6,000 a year had a second family the public had never heard of. The fortune he built is real, and it is still being divided — and the largest single owner may not be the family at all.
Entries in this story
Sources
- Zong Qinghou — Wikipedia (2026-09-19) ↩
- Hangzhou Wahaha Group — Wikipedia (2026-09-19)
- Zong Fuli steps down at Wahaha — KrASIA (citing the South China Morning Post) (2026-09-19) ↩
- Wahaha confirms Zong Fuli's resignation as chairwoman — China Daily (2026-09-19) ↩
- 90後許思敏接替宗馥莉，任娃哈哈集團法定代表人、董事長、總經理 — China.com.cn (2026-09-19) ↩
- 宗馥莉辞任娃哈哈集团董事长 — China News Service (2026-09-19) ↩
- Hong Kong Court Rejects Water Heiress Appeal Over $1.8 Billion — Bloomberg (2026-09-19) ↩
- Danone Exits China Venture After Years of Fighting — The New York Times, DealBook (2026-09-19) ↩
- “布鞋首富”宗庆后：幸运生于大时代 — Guangming Daily (光明网) (2026-09-19) ↩
- 娃哈哈46%国资大股东三年零分红，这家公司到底姓什么？ — Sohu (2026-09-19) ↩
- Zong Fuli — Forbes (2026-09-19) ↩