Vice Chairman of Top 20 Chinese Developer Goes Missing

The vice chairman of Hong Kong-listed Seazen Group, one of China’s largest homebuilders, has gone lacking, with mainland information sources reporting that the manager is cooperating with authorities on an investigation into Dalian Wanda Group, the place he beforehand held high administration positions.

Shanghai-based Seazen mentioned in a submitting to the Hong Kong inventory change on Friday that it has been unable to contact or attain Qu Dejun, who additionally serves as the corporate’s non-executive director. “As at the date of this announcement, the Company has not yet been able to ascertain the reasons thereof,” the assertion added.

Citing an individual with data of the scenario, mainland information website Caixin reported that Qu is aiding authorities in an investigation involving his profession at Wanda. Another outlet, The Paper, cited an individual near Wanda as saying that Qu’s disappearance could also be associated to an investigation of his profession there. Seazen informed Caixin that Qu’s absence was for private causes unrelated to the corporate.

The information comes after Zhuhai Wanda Commercial Management Group (Wanda Commercial), the mall unit of billionaire Wang Jianlin’s property empire, filed a prospectus for a Hong Kong IPO final October, with native information stories in China final week indicating that the mall developer expects the itemizing to happen within the second quarter of this yr.

Vanishing Act

Qu was final seen in public on 16 January when he attended a ceremony for a Seazen enterprise partnership within the southern Chinese metropolis of Xiamen, Caixin reported. Qu labored for Wanda for 17 years in a spread of roles, together with president of Wanda Financial Group and head of Wanda Internet Technology Group, earlier than leaving China’s largest industrial developer in May 2019. He joined Seazen, then referred to as Future Land Development Holdings, as vice chairman in July of that yr.

The actual property and company finance veteran started his profession at Seazen after a holding a spread of roles at Wanda, China’s high industrial developer, which he joined in 2002. Qu’s titles included president of Wanda Financial Group from 2015 to 2015, through which function he led Wanda Group’s monetary and Internet expertise enterprise.

In October 2016, Qu took the helm of the newly shaped Wanda Internet Technology Group, a by-product of numerous tech-related holdings which had beforehand been housed below Wanda’s monetary division, together with the corporate’s flailing online-to-offline purchasing platform ffan.

By the beginning of 2018, the fledgling division was reducing jobs, with the Financial Times reporting that the group deliberate to slash a minimum of 1,000 jobs in the course of the yr. Qu acknowledged on his public social media account that “the group is readjusting in order to better develop more quickly and in a healthy manner.”

Qu served in that publish till the tip of 2018, at which level he was named chairman of Wanda’s industrial play centre enterprise, Wanda Kids Palace Group, a place he held till he left the corporate 5 months later.

Qu stepped on board as vice chairman at Seazen days after the corporate’s then-chairman Wang Zhenhua was faraway from his publish, having been detained by police in Shanghai on suspicion of sexually abusing a minor in July 2019. Wang was sentenced to 5 years in jail for little one molestation in mid-2020.

The property billionaire’s son, Wang Xiaosong, stays as chairman of Seazen after taking the reins within the rapid aftermath of his father’s arrest in 2019. Fitch Ratings withdrew its rankings for Seazen Group and its subsidiary, Seazen Holdings, final October, saying the businesses had determined to cease taking part within the rankings course of.

Seazen reported RMB 79.8 billion ($11.6 billion) in contracted gross sales attributed to shareholders final yr, making it China’s Seventeenth-largest developer, in keeping with a rating by China Real Estate Information Corporation. The property agency says it has a presence in over 100 giant and mid-sized cities in China, with greater than 700 tasks accomplished or below improvement.

Mall IPO Looms

If media stories that Qu’s disappearance is linked to investigation of his profession at Wanda show appropriate, the case may current challenges for the mall-building large’s plans to take Wanda Commercial public on the Hong Kong inventory change this yr.

Citing unnamed sources near the corporate China’s National Business Daily reported final week that Wanda’s return to the Hong Kong bourse needs to be accomplished in the course of the second quarter of this yr. Wanda officers are reported to have informed traders throughout a 6 February highway present supporting their US greenback bond sale that the IPO is slated for the second quarter.

Fitch Ratings informed traders on 12 January that Wanda is anticipated to record in Hong Kong this yr, noting that it considers RMB 38 billion in pre-IPO funds which the developer obtained in 2021 as debt due if the IPO doesn’t occur this yr.

Wanda Commercial’s first two purposes for an IPO expired with out seeing the corporate rejoin the bourse, which it left in 2016. The purchasing centre enterprise had reportedly handed a listening to by the inventory change, however determined to carry off because of a downturn in Hong Kong-listed shares, in keeping with an analyst cited by China Business News.

Last month, Wanda Hotel Development revealed that the group’s chairman, Wang Jianlin, had pledged his whole 65 % stake within the conglomerate’s resort division as collateral to safe a mortgage from Singapore state holding agency Temasek for one more subsidiary, Wanda Culture Holding.