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> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/11/business/chairman-of-fosun-group-of-china-is-said-to-be-missing.html?smid=tw-dealbook&smtyp=cur&_r=1 <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/11/business/chairman-of-fosun-group-of-china-is-said-to-be-missing.html?smid=tw-dealbook&smtyp=cur&_r=1>
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> Chairman of Fosun Group of China Is Said to Be Missing
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> Guo Guangchang, chairman of the Fosun Group, one of China’s biggest private conglomerates, in 2010. Eric Piermont/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
> HONG KONG — The billionaire chairman of one of China’s biggest private conglomerates is missing, a local financial news magazine reported <http://english.caixin.com/2015-12-10/100884565.html> Thursday.
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> The billionaire, Guo Guangchang, described by the domestic press as “China’s Warren Buffett,” may have been taken away by police, either under arrest or in custody for questioning, the news magazine Caixin reported, citing people familiar with the matter. He is the chairman of the Fosun Group, which owns the Club Med chain of resorts and a stake in the Canadian entertainment company Cirque du Soleil, as well as stakes in insurance companies and property holdings.
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> The company’s listed arm, Fosun International <http://ir.fosun.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=194273&p=irol-IRHome>, whose shares trade in Hong Kong, has not made any announcement about its missing chairman. Calls to the company’s offices in Hong Kong and Shanghai were not answered. Liang Xinjun, the company’s vice chairman, told Bloomberg News that the company was “handling” the situation.
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> Mr. Guo is the latest and most prominent executive to disappear in recent weeks as anticorruption investigators increasingly turn their attention to the financial industry. Last month Yim Fung, the chairman of Guotai Junan International, the Hong Kong unit of one of China’s biggest brokerage firms, also disappeared. He had not been reachable since Nov. 18, the company said in a statement <http://www.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listconews/SEHK/2015/1123/LTN20151123021.pdf> to the stock exchange.
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> On Sunday, Citic Securities, the country’s biggest brokerage firm, which is often likened to Goldman Sachs, said <http://www.hkexnews.hk/listedco/listconews/SEHK/2015/1206/LTN20151206001.pdf> it had “not able to get in touch” with two its two top executives overseeing investment banking, Chen Jun and Yan Jianlin. In its statement, the company cited news media reports saying the two “were suspected of being requested to assist in an investigation.”
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> It adds to the scrutiny of top executives at the brokerage firm, several of whom have been detained since August. Chinese authorities are investigating <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/18/business/dealbook/citic-securities-investigation-china.html?_r=0> company officers, including its president, Cheng Boming, for insider trading. “Investors are advised to exercise caution in their investments and be aware of risks,” Citic Securities said in the announcement about Mr. Chen and Mr. Yan’s disappearance after reports about their situation appeared in Chinese news media last Friday.
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> The arrests and disappearances follow a sharp decline in the Chinese stock market this summer, with stocks in Shanghai plunging by more than 40 percent. Instead of letting markets take their course, the central government in Beijing undertook a major effort <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/09/business/international/stock-sell-off-unabated-in-china.html> to shore up prices.
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> The government limited short-selling, restricted share sales by major shareholders, cracked down on the futures market, and corralled brokerage firms, including Citic Securities, into a “national team” that shored up share prices at the behest of the state. It was an attempt by the government in Beijing — accustomed to controlling the levers of the economy — to impose discipline on the stock market.
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> But share prices, while temporarily stabilized, continued their slide. Recriminations soon followed.
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> In August, a reporter for the financial magazine Caijing, run by the brother of the chairman of Citic Securities, confessed on national television <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/07/business/media/caijing-journalists-shaming-signals-chinas-growing-control-over-news-media.html> to spreading “market rumors” in an article about the stock market. Investigators also detained top executives at brokerage firms and several officials at the country’s securities regulator.
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> Sometimes executives are released after working with investigators, as was the case with some Citic Securities executives. Li Yifei, who is China head for the Man Group, one of the world’s biggest hedge funds, returned to work after meeting with authorities, her husband told <http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1855894/man-group-china-chief-back-home-after-meeting-chinese> The South China Morning Post.
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> It has been a hazardous week for Chinese moguls. Last Friday, in Wuhan in central China, another Chinese executive, the 44-year-old Xu Ming, ranked by Forbes in 2005 as China’s eighth-richest person, was found dead in his prison cell <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/07/world/asia/china-xu-ming-dies-prison.html>, with Chinese news reports saying he died of a heart attack. His body was cremated the next day. It isn’t known whether an autopsy was performed.
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Eric D. Schwerin
Rosemont Seneca Advisors, LLC
1010 Wisconsin Ave., NW
Suite 705
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-1880
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com <x-msg://59/eschwerin@obblaw.com>
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