The former chairman of China Huarong Asset Management Co Ltd (中國華融資產管理), Lai Xiaomin (賴小民), has been expelled from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and would be prosecuted for suspected corruption, China’s top anti-graft agency said yesterday.
Lai, one of the most senior executives to be brought to book in China’s anti-corruption campaign, was accused of a long list of wrongdoings, from cronyism and taking bribes to the embezzlement of public property, the party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in a statement on its Web site.
Lai, in violation of political disciplines and the Chinese government’s financial policy, was accused of “blindly and disorderly” expanding Huarong away from its core business, causing adverse effects, the commission said.
Lai engaged in political opportunism and careerism, exchanged power for sex with several women, and flouted frugality rules by frequently accepting entertainment from private business owners in private clubs and high-end restaurants, it said.
Lai had also arranged company-paid travel for relatives and allowed them to use his influence to seek profit, the commission said.
As a senior official of the CCP, Lai had lost his belief in communism and had practiced “superstitious activities,” it said.
His illegal gains would be confiscated and the case would be transferred to judicial bodies for investigation, it added.
Lai was in April removed from his post as party chief and chairman of Huarong — one of China’s big four state-owned bad loan managers — and replaced by Wang Zhanfeng (王占峰), a senior official at the banking regulator.
The next likely step against Lai will be to put him on trial.
Huarong’s Hong Kong-listed shares, which have a market value of HK$56.65 billion (US$7.23 billion) dropped 3.45 percent at about noon yesterday.
The shares have fallen 62.47 percent since the beginning of this year.
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