Jack Ma has become the richest person in Asia. The 50-year-old founder

Jack Ma has become the richest person in Asia.

The 50-year-old founder of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (BABA), China’s biggest e-commerce company, passed Li Ka-shing, the Hong Kong property and ports tycoon who has held the top spot in the region since April 5, 2012, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Ma, a former English teacher who started the Hangzhou, China-based company in his apartment in 1999, has added $25 billion to his fortune this year, riding a 54 percent surge in the company’s shares since its September initial public offering. He has a $28.6 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg ranking. Li has a net worth of $28.3 billion.

“The billionaires in China are growing their wealth faster because China’s economy is still developing, with plenty of room for growth,” said Francis Ying, an analyst at Yuanta Research. “Hong Kong is already a mature market.”

Alibaba’s $259 billion market capitalization makes it larger than Amazon.com Inc. and EBay Inc. combined, and more valuable than all but eight companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

More than half of Ma’s wealth comes from his 6.3 percent stake of Alibaba, valued at $16.3 billion. He also controls almost half of the closely held finance unit and owner of Alipay, a service similar to PayPal.

Source Bloomberg