The chairman of the Chinese conglomerate that owns Club Med SA and whose company said he was assisting an official investigation after he disappeared for a day last week appeared yesterday at a corporate meeting, two newspapers reported.
The government has released no details about Fosun International Ltd (復星國際) chairman Guo Guangchang (郭廣昌), and Fosun has yet to say whether he was under investigation or was being questioned about other people.
An anti-corruption crackdown led by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has snared dozens of executives at state companies. A series of securities executives have disappeared or been detained since regulators launched an investigation after Chinese share prices plunged in June.
Guo spoke at Fosun’s previously scheduled annual meeting yesterday, according to the China Business News and the Paper. Both quoted identical comments from him saying Fosun needs to expand globally but gave no indication whether he mentioned the investigation.
Photographs on the papers’ Web sites showed Guo, 48, in a gray business suit and open-necked white shirt speaking at a podium and sitting with other executives.
Fosun suspended trading of its shares on Friday after Caixin business magazine reported the company was unable to contact Guo.
The company issued a statement later that day saying Guo was “currently assisting in certain investigations carried out by mainland judiciary authorities.”
Employees who answered the telephone yesterday at Fosun’s headquarters said no one was working in the PR department.
Guo was cited by a Shanghai court in August as being linked to the chairman of a state-owned supermarket chain who was sentenced to 18 years in prison on corruption charges.
Fosun denied any wrongdoing in its dealings with the chairman.
Guo is one of China’s biggest investors abroad. Fosun, which he co-founded in the 1990s, has businesses in real estate, steel, mining and retailing.
The Financial Times dubbed him “China’s Warren Buffett” for following the legendary US investor’s approach of using the cash flow from insurance operations to buy other businesses.
Fosun this year won a bidding war to take over Club Med. Last year, it paid 1 billion euros (US$1.09 billion) for Portugal’s biggest insurance company, Caixa Seguros. In the US, it owns Meadowbrook Insurance Group Inc, 20 percent of insurer Ironshore Inc and the 60-floor office tower at 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza in New York.
Guo has a net worth of US$7.8 billion, according to the Hurun Report, which follows China’s wealthy.
In related news, China’s biggest brokerage, state-owned Citic Securities Co, last week said it could not contact two of its top investment bankers. In September, the police ministry announced Citic’s general manager and other executives were suspected of insider trading and leaking sensitive information.
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