China’s financial sector has been shocked by reports that Bao Fan, the billionaire chairman of investment bank China Renaissance, has disappeared.
No official statement was immediately made by the authorities to explain his whereabouts, but there is widespread speculation that the prominent businessman has landed in Beijing and is being held for questioning.
Some of China’s major financiers have fallen from grace in recent years, as President Xi Jinping has waged an aggressive crackdown on corruption allegations.
Here are the top five cases:
Sun Dawu
Agricultural tycoon Sun Dawu was sentenced to 18 years in prison in July 2021 for various offenses after the conclusion of a closed trial.
The charismatic Sun and his wife built one of China’s largest private agricultural companies starting with a few chickens and pigs in the 1980s.
Sun was found guilty of crimes including “gathering a crowd to attack state organs”, “obstructing government administration” and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, a catch-all term often used against dissidents.
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The savvy billionaire has also been a vocal champion of rural reform and a whistleblower during a devastating swine fever outbreak in 2019, posting photos of dead pigs online after local officials were slow to respond to the disease.
Xiao Jianhua
Chinese-Canadian business magnate Xiao Jianhua, who disappeared from a Hong Kong hotel in 2017, was sentenced to 13 years in prison in August 2022 on charges of embezzlement and bribery.
Xiao’s company, Tomorrow Group, was fined $8 billion for “illegally absorbing public deposits, breaching trust in the use of trust property … (and) using illegal funds”, according to a Shanghai court.
One of China’s richest men when he was kidnapped in 2017, Xiao reportedly had close ties to the upper echelons of the ruling Communist Party.
Local media in Hong Kong had reported at the time of Xiao’s disappearance that he was being held by mainland Chinese agents – raising concerns about China’s tight grip on the financial center.
Jack Ma
In one of the most visible examples of China’s tech sector, regulators have taken notice of the world’s largest IPO – that of fintech giant Ant Group – in 2020 just days after founder Jack Ma criticized local regulators.
Once the most recognizable face in Asian business, Ma has seen his fortune drop by about half to about $25 billion after the decision to end the IPO.
An overhaul of Ant’s shareholding structure announced in January 2023 will now see Ma, who has since retreated from the public eye, relinquish control of the fintech giant he founded in 2014.
He will hold only 6.2 percent of the voting rights as the company moves to ensure “no shareholder, alone or together with other parties, will have control over the Ant Group”, the firm said in a statement last month.
Guo Guangchang
Billionaire Guo Guangchang, chairman of one of the country’s largest private sector conglomerates, Fosun, disappeared from public view in 2015 as he was investigated by authorities, before resurfacing the next day.
The strange episode has a chilling effect on business leaders who consider Guo’s reputation for moral probity and outspoken support for the party as a bulwark against obstacles.
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An avid tai-chi practitioner with a reputation for chaste living, Guo seemed an unlikely target for Beijing’s inquisitors.
His loss appears to have breached the unspoken bond of trust between the government and China’s top business leaders whose hard work and financial savvy have made China the world’s second-largest economy.
Mao Xiaofeng
Mao Xiaofeng, president of China’s largest private lender, Minsheng Bank, was taken in for questioning in 2015 as part of a corruption investigation.
Respected business news outlet Caixin reported when Mao was brought in for investigation by the ruling Communist Party’s internal watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI).
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Mao “has been asked to help in the investigation of high officials”, Caixin reported.
The tycoon was also fired from his post as Communist Party secretary Minsheng.