China cracks down on banking corruption
(14 December 2015 – China) The Agricultural Bank of China last week confirmed its president resigned for personal reasons, the company said, amid reports he had been taken away in a corruption investigation, as probes widen in the country’s financial sector.
Zhang Yun had stepped down from the lender, one of the country’s “big four” state-owned banks, it said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange, where it is listed.
The announcement came a month after reports were published that said Zhang had been taken away for questioning.
Meanwhile, China’s biggest brokerage Citic Securities told the Hong Kong exchange it had lost contact with two members of its executive committee – Chen Jun and Yan Jianlin – and they might be assisting an investigation.
Further, China's largest private sector firm Fosun Group said its billionaire founder Guo Guangchang was "assisting in certain investigations carried out by mainland judicial authorities."
The statement followed Guo's disappearance late last week last week. The group's Hong Kong-listed subsidiary, Fosun International, said Guo would continue to take part in major company decisions and there would be "no material adverse impact" on the group's finances or operation.
Chinese authorities have launched a series of investigations into the financial sector after a debt-fuelled stock market bubble – encouraged by the central government burst in the summer in a rout that wiped out trillions of dollars of market capitalisations.
Citic Securities said earlier this month that the company itself was being investigated by the market regulator, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, following police investigations into several company executives for insider trading and leaking inside information.
Subscribe