More than 400 people lost their billionaire status last year, most of them from Chinaas a global tightening of monetary policy, the problems caused by COVID-19 and Beijing’s crackdown on big tech companies has hit the tycoons ranked among the world’s richest people.

China has lost 229 billionaires from the Hurun Global Rich List 2023, more than half of the 445 people removed from the list, which includes tycoons worth at least $1 billion, Hurun said in a report.

The world’s second largest economy also added 69 new billionaires to the list during this period.

“The number of billionaires in the world has decreased by 8%, and their total wealth has decreased by 10%,” said Rupert Hugewerf, founder and president of Hurun Report. He added that there are 3,112 people on the list compared to 3,381 a year earlier.

China remained the largest source of the super-rich, with a total of 969 billionaires as of January 16, 2023, ahead of the US with 691 tycoons.

The luxury goods companies had a good year, with LVMH chief Bernard Arnault climbing to the top of the list and Hermes heir Bertrand Pouy and his family in third place.

Among the delisted names is Sam Bankman-Fried, who lost his $21 billion fortune following the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange.

In China, Jack Ma, founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, dropped to 52nd from 34th a year earlier, largely due to China’s tech industry regulations.

“Rising interest rates, a stronger US dollar, the bursting of the tech bubble created by Covid, and the ongoing impact of the Russian-Ukrainian war have combined to hit stock markets,” Hoogewerf said.

Last year, the S&P 500 lost more than 14% by the end of January, while China’s Shanghai Composite lost almost 11%.

Meanwhile, the Chinese yuan lost about 8% of its value against the dollar in 2022, its biggest annual fall since 1994, largely due to aggressive rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and a slowdown in the domestic economy.

^{Source: APE-MEB, Reuters}