Czech President announces CEFC chief to step down, CITIC looks to move in
March 21, 2018
The recently missing-in-action chairman of CEFC China Energy Ye Jianming is to step down as head of the company, reports Reuters, following a statement from an unlikely source: the office of the president of the Czech Republic.
The announcement came as CEFC’s Czech subsidiary CEFC Europe backed out of a record deal in the Czech Republic, with Chinese state-run bank CITIC reportedly interested in acquiring the company.
Ye is currently under investigation in China for suspected economic crimes.
Beijing-based CEFC has expanded rapidly in recent years through aggressive acquisition of foreign assets, a notable example of this the purchase of a $9.1 billion stake in Russian oil giant Rosneft, which has yet to go through. Representatives of Rosneft say that the deal is still ‘very much alive’.