The chief of one of China’s state asset management firms, Huarong, has been placed under investigation by the Communist party’s anti-graft agency, the South China Morning Post reports this morning, though details of any allegations have not been made public.
Lai Xiaomin, Huarong CEO and previous PBOC economist, has been accused of “serious discipline violations”, according to a brief statement by China’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.
Huarong is the largest of four state-run “bad banks” set up in 1999 to clean up toxic assets in China’s banking sector, taking in trillions of yuan in bad loans at the beginning of the last decade.
This is the latest case of the head of a major organisation being questioned for illegal activity by China’s state regulators. CEOs of Anbang Insurance and energy supplier CEFC have both been targets of government allegations in recent months.