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Three New Billionaires in Two Days as China Battery Giant Soars

Charged up with dollars: Three new billionaires in two days from Chinese battery giant’s IPO.

Three New Billionaires in Two Days as China Battery Giant Soars
Signage is displayed at the Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd. (CATL) headquarters and manufacturing complex in Ningde, Fujian Province, China. (Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- The initial public offering of the world’s biggest maker of electric-vehicle batteries produced its third billionaire in two days as the stock continued to soar in Shenzhen.

Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. jumped by the maximum 10 percent allowed at 11:25 a.m. local time, following a debut increase of 44 percent Monday. That gave the company a market value of about $13.5 billion, pushing the net worth of shareholder Pei Zhenhua, a clean-technology executive, past the $1 billion mark, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

CATL’s founder and top shareholder Zeng Yuqun and his lieutenant Huang Shilin were already cemented on China’s rich list along with Monday’s stock jump. Investors are betting that CATL can fend off rivals Panasonic Corp., which makes power packs with Tesla Inc.; Warren Buffett-backed BYD Co.; and LG Chem Ltd. as the increasing popularity of EVs boosts demand for the batteries that move them.

Three New Billionaires in Two Days as China Battery Giant Soars

Pei, chairman of Suzhou TA&A Ultra Clean Technology Co., owns 6.1 percent of CATL through a holding company and 44.2 percent of Suzhou TA&A with his wife, giving him a net worth of $1 billion. Suzhou TA&A said in a March filing that Pei’s investment in CATL is his personal act.

The IPO made CATL the biggest company on China’s Nasdaq-style ChiNext list. Zeng, a 50-year-old engineer who started CATL seven years ago, owns a 26 percent stake and has an estimated net worth of $3.8 billion. Vice Chairman Huang holds 12 percent and has an estimated net worth of $1.9 billion. A CATL representative declined to comment on the net worth of its executives.

To contact the reporters on this story: Venus Feng in Hong Kong at vfeng7@bloomberg.net;Ma Jie in Tokyo at jma124@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anand Krishnamoorthy at anandk@bloomberg.net, Ville Heiskanen, Sam Nagarajan

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