China University Deal Spree Exposes Zhao as Chip Billionaire

The man spearheading China’s government-sponsored drive to buy foreign chip technology has revealed himself as a billionaire in the process.

Zhao Weiguo tapped connections at his alma mater Tsinghua University, whose alumni include China’s two most recent presidents, to make acquisitions and amass a $2 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd., a unit of the university’s holding company that Zhao’s chairman of, signed a $1.45 billion deal with Intel Corp. last year and was shortlisted to buy more than $2.5 billion of Hewlett-Packard Co. assets, people familiar with the matter have said.