ZONG QINGHOU, founder of Hangzhou Wahaha Group, a food and beverage giant in China, passed away yesterday morning at the age of 79 after medical treatment failed, according to the group.

Wahaha didn’t provide further details on the cause of Zong’s death or the location of the medical facility. The company said Thursday that the self-made billionaire was hospitalized for treatment and was in stable condition.

Zong has long been regarded as one of the landmark figures in Chinese business history, Xinhua said yesterday, and his life paralleled China’s transformation from a poor and mostly-agrarian country into the world’s factory floor and its second-largest economy. His wealth, which began with a US$22,000 family loan, grew into billions of dollars as Chinese people became ever more voracious consumers.

Zong never attended high school and after working as a consumer goods salesman for several years, Zong took over a small shop at a grade school in the eastern city of Hangzhou in 1987. There, he created Wahaha, the beverage brand that would make him one of China’s richest men. Hangzhou Wahaha, once a school-run firm, has become a major firm with 81 production bases and more than 180 subsidiaries, employing nearly 30,000 people.

The group again featured on the 2023 list of China’s top 500 private firms, having achieved total operating revenue of 51.2 billion yuan in 2022.

With 80% control of Wahaha, Zong became China’s richest man by 2012 with a personal fortune of US$20.1 billion.

For all his wealth and stature, Zong lived frugally. He dressed simply, and wouldn’t buy new shoes until the pair he was wearing had worn out.

Longtime Wahaha spokesman Shan Qining liked to tell a story of sales people at a yacht exhibition ignoring Zong, and being told only afterward that they had snubbed one of China’s richest men. (SD-Agencies)