China megadeal crackdown comes straight from top

China’s government reined in one of its brashest conglomerates with the approval of President Xi Jinping, according to people with knowledge of the action—a mark that the broader government clampdown on large private companies comes right from the top of China’s leadership, according to The Wall Street Journal. The measures, with President Xi’s previously unreported approval last month, bar state-owned banks from making new loans to property giant Dalian Wanda Group to help fuel its foreign expansion. The cutoff in bank financing for the company’s foreign investments highlights Beijing’s changing view of a series of Wanda’s recent overseas acquisitions as irrational and overpriced, these people say. Beijing for years encouraged Chinese companies to scour the globe for deals. Now it is reining in some of its highest-profile private entrepreneurs in what officials say is growing unease with their high leverage and growing influence.