Molten aluminum is poured into a furnace at the workshop of an aluminum product manufacturing enterprise on May 13, 2025 in Binzhou, Shandong Province of China. (Photo by Chu Baorui/VCG via Getty Images)
VCG via Getty Images
Cui Lixin—the founder of Chinese aluminum smelter Chuangxin Industries Holdings—has become a billionaire after the company’s shares surged 33% in its Hong Kong trading debut on Monday amid increasing demand for the metal.
The 56-year-old chairman of the company has amassed a fortune of $3.6 billion based mostly on his stake in Chuangxin Industries, according to Forbes estimates. Cui also derives his wealth from a separate ownership in Shanghai-listed Innovation New Material Technology, an aluminum product maker.
The Inner Mongolia-based Chuangxin Industries raised HK$5.5 billion ($706 million) from its IPO, attracting investors including American quantitative trading firm Jane Street, Swiss commodities giant Glencore AG and Singapore-based investment firm Hillhouse Group.
Chuangxin Industries plans to use proceeds from the IPO for purposes including the construction of green energy power plants and new smelters abroad, according to its prospectus. It sold 500 million shares at HK$10.99 apiece in its maiden share sale. The stock closed at HK$14.59 in Hong Kong trading, 33% above its offer price.
The company is benefiting from rising commodity prices, Kenny Ng, a Hong Kong-based securities strategist at Everbright Securities International, says via messages sent by WeChat. “Market is now paying a lot of attention to commodity and resource-related stocks,” he says.
Investors have recently taken a liking towards such stocks as China progresses with its so-called anti-involution campaign, he says. Authorities are curbing excessive price wars in industries ranging from electric vehicles to solar panels, helping to support aluminum and copper prices as companies gradually cease to press suppliers for discounts.
Chuangxin Industries didn’t respond to a request for comment. During the first five months of 2025 (the latest financial results available), revenues increased 23% year-on-year to 7.2 billion yuan ($1 billion). Net profit, however, decreased 14% to 855.5 million yuan from the same period a year ago as the company built new smelter facilities, according to its prospectus.
Cui started out humbly. He worked for almost two decades at various government-affiliated companies in the county of Zouping in Shandong province in eastern China, according to the annual report of Innovation New Material Technology, the other company Cui chairs.
After a stint at a local industrial equipment company in Zouping, Cui got into the commodity business in 2013. Almost a decade later in 2022, he took Innovation New Material Technology public in Shanghai through a backdoor listing. The aluminum product maker is also one of his Chuangxin Industries’s biggest customers. It accounted for almost two thirds of the Hong Kong-listed firm’s revenues during the first five months of 2025, according to the prospectus.