China has always had an aura of the mystique. Not much has changed over the years and the enigmatic life in this shadowy nation continues with several Chinese moguls mysteriously disappearing and then reappearing in the last six months of the year.
The latest in the ongoing series of missing executives is Zhou Chengjian, the billionaire founder of Metersbonwe, one of China's best-known fashion brands. Zhou Chengjian has been named as the country's 62nd richest person by wealth publisher Hurun, estimating his fortune at $4.1 billion.
Metersbonwe Trading Suspended
Metersbonwe suspended trading in its shares over its CEO’s unaccounted absence while Chinese media reports speculated that he was picked up by the police as part of Beijing's anti-corruption drive. Zou is the latest high-profile private sector businessman believed to have been caught up in probes.
Back in November, Yim Fung, also known as Yan Feng, joint chairman and chief executive of Guotai Junan Securities went AWOL. During this time, fears were raised that he may be in police detention as part of a widespread investigation into alleged stock market corruption which Beijing launched in the wake of China’s share collapse.
When he reappeared after eight months he said that he had been assisting in the investigation of certain cases by mainland authorities, making sure to point out that he himself was not under investigation.
His disappearance came only weeks after Guo Guangchang, chairman of private sector conglomerate Fosun, temporarily went missing for 36 hours. Fosun operates in sectors from steel and mining to pharmaceuticals and in 2015 it acquired the French vacation resort company Club Med. Mr. Guo has been described as "China's Warren Buffett."
Guo reappeared at his company's annual meeting in Shanghai and explained that he too had been "assisting in certain investigations carried out by judiciary authorities".
Zhang Yun Assisted in Investigations
What adds to the intrigue is that the same person assisting in the investigation of both disappearances was Zhang Yun, Vice Chairman and President of the Agricultural Bank of China, the world’s third biggest bank by assets. Yun disappeared in November and the bank handed in his resignation without any further explanation in early December. Some say he was taken away to assist in an investigation.
Around the middle of the year, China launched a series of probes into brokerages that the government suspected of profiting from the dramatic falls on the Chinese stock markets. Some in Hong Kong and China's financial sector believe that the disappearances of these rich and powerful figures are part of a wider anti-corruption campaign that Beijing launched to clean up various pillars of China's economy - including the financial sector--and its hunt for the people who they think are responsible for the stock market rout this past summer.
The ongoing ins and outs of prominent and super wealthy individuals are seen as examples of a government promoting Capitalism on one hand but resorting to heavy handed police action when things go wrong. And although experts had expected the crackdown campaign to wind down, this past summer's massive market crash has led to a new wave of disappearances with regulators now also cracking down on alleged insider trading and "rumor-mongering."
At the same time that Zhang Yun went undercover, police arrested the general manager and several other top executives at Citic Securities, China’s largest securities brokerage, for insider trading linked to the China’s stock market falls this year.