A Missing Tycoon’s Links to China’s Troubled Dalian Wanda
Now both Wanda and that billionaire, Xiao Jianhua, are under official pressure in China — and one Wanda insider says that may not be a coincidence.
Wanda is one of a number of companies in China that have come to be known as gray rhinos: politically connected private companies
that have invested billions of dollars abroad and borrowed heavily from Chinese banks.
A business partner of Mr. Xiao, Yang Hongwei, held a senior position at an investment firm that helped oversee a Wanda private share sale in 2009.
It is not clear whether Wanda actively sought his help or whether Mr. Xiao’s connections
in the Chinese business world are so extensive that they could be difficult to avoid.
Mr. Saich said that Mr. Xiao might be laying out for government regulators the complex and interlocking web of debts and shareholding ties among many companies
that could pose a danger to China’s financial stability.
Mr. Yang at the time ran the China operations of the investment banking arm of China Construction Bank, a huge state-run lender, and
that investment bank was itself once one of Wanda’s biggest shareholders.
