The chairman of the Chinese conglomerate that owns Club Med and whose company missing-fosun-chairman-guo-guangchang-assisting-chinese-judiciary-5299/”>said he was assisting an official investigation after he disappeared for a day last week, appeared Monday at a corporate meeting, two newspapers reported.
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Fosun Group is due to hold its annual meeting on Monday, where Guo usually makes a speech, Chinese news portal Sohu said.
Shares in Fosun International plunged Monday after it announced that the parent company’s chairman, Guo Guangchang – regarded as “China’s Warren Buffet” – was cooperating with Chinese investigators.
Salinger halted the approval process for Fosun’s permit to acquire Phoenix, the Hebrew daily Calcalist reported on Sunday.
Other reports said he was being questioned in connection with a probe into former Shanghai vice mayor and director of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone Ai Baojun, who was placed under investigation last month by the Communist Party’s internal anti-graft body for “severe disciplinary violations”, a euphemism for corruption.
BBC Asia-Pacific analyst Michael Bristow says Mr Guo’s empire extends across the world, while Forbes magazine estimates his fortune at $7bn (£4.6bn).
Liang said Fosun was in communication with its lenders, investors and credit ratings agencies and said the company was “not in crisis”, and its financial situation was “very healthy”.
“We trust Chairman Guo is a wise man and will actively cooperate and fulfil his duties to assist the investigation as soon as possible”, company president Wang Qunbin told a conference call.
According to the company, convertible bonds and shares will resume trading on December 14.
Earlier in the year, a string of senior executives were found to have gone missing temporarily amid Beijing’s crackdown, in a sign of how serious China is about ramping up scrutiny of its financial sector. If Guo is under investigation that suggests authorities are extending scrutiny beyond state-owned enterprises increasing uncertainty for investors said Ronald Wan CEO of investment banking at Partners Capital International in Hong Kong.
Based on data provided by Dealogic, Fosun now has about seven pending outbound transactions worth at least $3.27 billion (one deal’s value hasn’t been disclosed), including its bid for German private bank BHF Kleinwort Benson and Hauck & Aufhaeuser Privatbankiers.
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Legal documents provided by Shanghai No 2 Intermediate People’s Court showed that there was an illegal transfer of interests from Wang to Fosun International after a joint venture was established between Shanghai Friendship and Fosun International. The future growth of Fosun will rely more heavily on China.
