Economics

Chinese Tycoon Who Shook Up Global Aluminum Industry Dies at 73

  • Zhang Shiping founded world’s biggest aluminum, textile makers
  • Billionaire made use of market reforms to build his empire
Zhang ShipingPhotographer: Dong naide/Imaginechina via AP Photo
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Zhang Shiping, the industrialist who hauled cotton bales in rural China before building a multi billion-dollar empire spanning metal to textiles to electricity, has died. He was 73.

Zhang, the board chairman of China Hongqiao Group Ltd., died Thursday, according to a company filingBloomberg Terminal to the Hong Kong stock exchange. A veteran Communist Party member, he made full use of the market reforms ushered in by former leader Deng Xiaoping to create not one, but two world-class businesses.