Aluminum’s surge propels Chinese tycoon to $61 billion fortune

BEIJING – When Zhang Bo took over his father’s industrial empire in 2019, it was already one of the world’s biggest producers of aluminum, the most widely used industrial metal. Since then, the stock of his China Hongqiao Group has soared 585 per cent, quietly turning Mr Zhang into Asia’s richest metals tycoon with a fortune of about US$48 billion (S$61 billion). Mr Zhang, the world’s largest private producer of the metal, has a grip on low-cost output at a critical moment for global demand. He’s a supplier to China’s biggest tech firms like Huawei Technologies, Xiaomi and BYD. Aluminum…