A Missing Tycoon’s Links to China’s Troubled Dalian Wanda<br />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.<br />Wanda is one of a number of companies in China that have come to be known as gray rhinos: politically connected private companies<br />that have invested billions of dollars abroad and borrowed heavily from Chinese banks.<br />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.<br />It is not clear whether Wanda actively sought his help or whether Mr. Xiao’s connections<br />in the Chinese business world are so extensive that they could be difficult to avoid.<br />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<br />that could pose a danger to China’s financial stability.<br />Mr. Yang at the time ran the China operations of the investment banking arm of China Construction Bank, a huge state-run lender, and<br />that investment bank was itself once one of Wanda’s biggest shareholders.
