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Thread: Chinese Tycoons, CEOs & Tuhao

  1. #46
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    Pansy Ho

    Pansy Ho is a great name. I'm not making fun of it - she's rich enough to own me.

    Macau casino heiress Pansy Ho’s wild past firmly behind her as she presides over multibillion empire from The Peak
    PUBLISHED : Monday, 30 July, 2018, 4:02pm
    UPDATED : Tuesday, 31 July, 2018, 11:23am
    Ryan Swift



    Pansy Ho Chiu-king must be feeling confident these days.

    Her main business, Shun Tak Holdings, posted a 66 per cent year on year increase in revenue to nearly HK$6.4 billion (US$815.4 million) and reversed a net loss of nearly HK$600 million in 2016 to net profit of HK$1.4 billion, thanks to property sales and an improving business environment in Macau. And her company is part of the consortium that has won exclusive rights to a bus service operating on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge. And she has promoted herself from managing director to group executive chairman of Shun Tak Holdings.

    And to put the cherry on top, Ho, with a net worth estimated at US$4.8 billion, just dropped US$114.6 million for a house on The Peak – one of the most prestigious districts in Hong Kong.

    Macau casino heiress pays HK$900 million for Peak mansion in Asia’s second-costliest property
    It’s a remarkable turn for a woman who, in the 1990s, was considered a party-going socialite rather than a businesswoman. She could be spotted on beaches in Thailand, most notoriously with her bad-boy lover Gilbert Yeung, or captured by the paparazzi at nightclubs in Hong Kong.

    Nowadays, she is more likely to be seen at high-minded cultural events, or spending time secluded aboard her yacht in the Mediterranean.

    Ho is one of 17 children by Stanley Ho, one of the world’s best-known casino moguls. Uniquely among Stanley Ho’s children, Pansy has publicly emerged as heir-apparent. She has shareholdings in SJM Holdings and MGM China.

    She famously keeps a retinue with her, always looking after her personal affairs and jumping to her orders.

    In a 2015 interview, Ho said that as a child, she wanted to be an anthropologist or archaeologist. Her mother dissuaded her by reminding her how afraid she was of dirty places. Ho went on to study art history and religious studies, and later considered becoming an art historian or curator. At her father’s urging, she studied business.

    She also developed a pretty clear sense of what she liked and what she did not. In 1991, Ho married Julian Hui, the scion of a low-key property family and five years her junior. For the wedding, the couple apparently stipulated not just the crystal and silverware to bring as presents, but also the expected brand name for each item, according to an SCMP report.


    Gilbert Yeung with whom Pansy Ho had an affair in the 1990s. Photo: SCMP

    Ho’s business and personal life have always been intertwined. She first started work at Shun Tak, under her father, in 1994. In 1996, her father become a partner on a casino project in North Korea with Albert Yeung, chairman of Emperor Group. By the late 1990s, Ho and Gilbert Yeung, Albert’s hard-partying son, were an item. After a year and a half, it was broken off when Stanley Ho publicly declared that Pansy would lose her inheritance if she married Gilbert. The affair was widely thought to be the reason for her divorce from Hui in 2000.

    In a 2009 interview, Ho described how as a child, she often accompanied her father on trips into the mountains to hunt partridges and wild ducks. “I was the brave one of the family who would go with him, and we would climb mountains and trek through the wilderness for hours together,” she said at the time. Despite this, she said she only ever referred to her father as “Dr Ho”.

    In early 2011, Pansy was famously involved in a dispute with her father, who accused her, her siblings and his third wife Ina, of having tricked him out of almost all his assets. The feud put the Ho family into the spotlight like no other Asian dynasty. While staying tight-lipped about the affair, Pansy and her family came to a settlement on the distribution of the ageing tycoon’s assets and wealth, and the family has outwardly been at peace ever since.


    The MGM Cotai hotel in Macau, which is the latest hotel in MGM China’s portfolio. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

    Appearances have always mattered to Pansy, who has seemingly mastered the art of public theatre, even having a brief turn as a TV actress in her youth. For a photo shoot in 2015, she came prepared with several outfits – flattering and youthful, but not fancy. During investigations before the Nevada Gaming Commission into her father’s ties to the criminal underworld, she could appear before the cameras looking like a Chinese middle class housewife. In the spring of 2018, newly slimmed down, she looked like a 21st century version of the Dowager Empress Cixi.


    Casino Grand Lisboa in Macau is part of SJM Holdings, in which Shun Tak has a stake. Photo: Dickson Lee

    Certainly, building up a business based on Macau’s gaming attractions is not always smooth sailing. In 2012, along with China Eastern Airlines and Qantas Airways, Shun Tak invested in a proposed new budget airline, Jetstar Hong Kong. But its application for an operating licence was ultimately rejected by Hong Kong’s Air Transport Licensing Authority this year, on the basis that ownership and decision-making was not sufficiently Hong Kong-based, thanks in part to a challenge by Cathay Pacific.

    But she has also shown persistence in building up her businesses, and shrewdness in negotiating her position within MGM China, while tightening her grip on Shun Tak over the years. Certainly, she will be engaging in many more negotiations on the distribution of the Ho family business interests in the years to come, but now she will be doing it with a rather spectacular view from The Peak as the backdrop to her lofty stage.
    Gene Ching
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  2. #47
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    Liu Qiangdong

    Chinese Billionaire Arrested in Minneapolis For Alleged Sexual Misconduct


    Chinese billionaire Liu Qiangdong, also known as Richard Liu, the founder of the Beijing-based e-commerce site JD.com, who was arrested in Minneapolis on suspicion of criminal sexual conduct, jail records show. Hennepin County Sheriff's Office/AP
    By STEVE KARNOWSKI / AP September 3, 2018

    MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Chinese billionaire Liu Qiangdong, also known as Richard Liu, the founder of the Beijing-based e-commerce site JD.com, was arrested in Minneapolis on suspicion of criminal sexual conduct, jail records show.

    Liu, 45, was arrested late Friday night and released Saturday afternoon pending possible criminal charges, Hennepin County Jail records show. The jail records don’t provide details of the alleged incident.

    Minneapolis police spokesman John Elder said Sunday that he couldn’t provide any details because the investigation is considered active. He declined to say where in Minneapolis Liu was arrested or what Liu was accused of doing.

    Minnesota law defines five degrees of criminal sexual misconduct, ranging from a gross misdemeanor to felonies, covering a broad array of conduct ranging from nonconsensual touching to violent assaults with injuries. The jail records for Liu don’t indicate a degree.

    JD.com, the main rival to Alibaba Group, said in a statement posted Sunday on the Chinese social media site Weibo that Liu was falsely accused while in the U.S. on a business trip, but that police investigators found no misconduct and that he would continue his journey as planned.

    “We will take the necessary legal action against false reporting or rumors,” the company said.

    Liu recently tried to distance himself from a sexual assault allegations against a guest at a 2015 party at Liu’s penthouse in Australia. Liu was not charged or accused of wrongdoing, but Australian media reported he tried unsuccessfully to get a court to prevent the release of his name in that case. The guest was convicted.

    In June, Google said it would invest $550 million in JD.com. The investment reflected an effort by the U.S. tech company to expand its reach into Asian e-commerce.

    JD.com is China’s second-largest e-commerce company after Alibaba. Among its other investors is Chinese internet gaming and social media giant Tencent Holdings, the developer of the WeChat messenger app and a major rival of Alibaba, and U.S. retailer Walmart Inc.

    ___

    Associated Press reporters Gillian Wong in Beijing and Josh Boak in Baltimore contributed to this story.
    The reports are saying rape now.
    Gene Ching
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  3. #48
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    Continued from previous post


    Bartholomew Cooke

    Those looking for China's lost art have plenty of targets. According to one widely cited government estimate, more than 10 million antiquities have disappeared from China since 1840. The works that mean the most to the Chinese are the ones that left during the so-called Century of Humiliation, from 1840 to 1949, when China was repeatedly carved up by foreign powers. The modern Communist Party has declared its intent to bring China back from that period of prolonged decline, and the return of looted objects serves as undeniable proof—tangible, visible, and beautiful proof—of the country's revival.

    By far the most important pieces are those that were hauled away by British and French troops in 1860 after the sacking of the Old Summer Palace. In China today, it's difficult to overstate the indignity still associated with the looting of the palace, which had served as a residence to the last Chinese dynasty. Its gardens, art, and architecture were said to be among the most beautiful in the world. The palace held an array of wonders, not the least of which was a fountain adorned with 12 bronze heads representing the animals of the Chinese zodiac.

    “The government in China doesn't think they're stolen objects. They think they belong to them."
    When European troops reached the garden, the desecration of the palace became a mad frenzy. Soldiers stripped it of everything they could carry. The zodiac heads were wrenched from their bases and hauled away as trophies. When the soldiers had removed all they could, they torched what remained—retribution, they said, for the torture and murder of British envoys who'd attempted to negotiate with the Chinese. The grounds of the palace were so large and so intricate that the 4,500 troops needed three days to burn everything.

    Most of the plunder was taken back to Europe and either tucked away in private collections or presented as gifts to royal families. Queen Victoria of Britain was given a pet Pekingese dog, the first of its kind ever seen in Europe. Unabashed by its provenance, she named it Looty.

    In China, the memory of the Old Summer Palace's destruction remains vivid—and intentionally so. The site has been kept as ruins, the better to “stir feelings of national humiliation and patriotism,” as one Chinese academic put it. Perhaps it was only a matter of time before those feelings transformed into action.



    The porcelain "chicken cup" that sold for $36 million in 2014 Aarom Tam/Getty Images

    Of course, not all of the art that's finding its way home to China is being snatched off museum walls in the dead of night or wrangled back by aggressive bureaucrats. The country's new elite are helping, too.

    “The Chinese don't need a coordinating campaign,” says James Ratcliffe, the director of recoveries and general counsel at the Art Loss Register. “There are enough Chinese collectors with a huge amount of money who want the pride of acquiring this art.”

    In 2016, for the first time, China had more billionaires than the United States. Many of the country's nouveau riche have taken to art collecting with a giddy enthusiasm. In 2000, China represented 1 percent of the global-art-auction market; by 2014, it accounted for 27 percent. The market for historical Chinese art is so frenzied that even seemingly mundane pieces of Chinese art can electrify the scene at auction houses.

    In 2010, a 16-inch Chinese vase went up for sale at an auction house in an unremarkable suburb of London. The starting price was $800,000. Half an hour later, the final bid—reportedly from an anonymous buyer from mainland China—was $69.5 million. Though the provenance of this vase was mysterious, similar objects with traceable histories of looting have proved valuable. “Buying looted artwork has become high-street fashion among China's elite,” Zhao Xu, the director of Beijing Poly Auction, told China Daily.

    Their desires adhere to a nationalistic logic: The closer an object's connection to China's ignominious defeats, the more significant its return. In recent years, vases, bronzeware, and a host of other items from the Old Summer Palace have all sold for millions. Behind these purchases is almost always a well-connected Chinese billionaire eager to demonstrate China's modern resurgence on the world stage.

    In 2014, a taxi driver turned billionaire named Liu Yiqian paid $36 million for a small porcelain “chicken cup,” coveted because it was once a part of the imperial collection. (According to the Wall Street Journal, he completed his purchase by swiping his Amex card 24 times and promptly stoked controversy by drinking from the dish.) A few months later, he paid an additional $45 million for a Tibetan silk tapestry from the Ming era. “When we are young, we are indoctrinated to believe that the foreigners stole from us,” Liu once told The New Yorker. “But maybe it's out of context. Whatever of ours [the foreigners] stole, we can always snatch it back one day.” (Liu Yiqian did not respond to requests for comment.)


    Chinese billionaire Huang Nubo Nicolas Asfouri/Getty Images

    Huang Nubo has a similarly patriotic interest in China's art. Tall and broad-shouldered, with a ruddy complexion and close-set eyes, he's the kind of billionaire who makes other billionaires jealous: He's an accomplished adventurer, one of the few people alive to have visited both the North and South Poles and summited the world's seven tallest peaks (he's topped Everest three times). When I met him at his office in Beijing, he had just returned from an expedition in western China, where he'd reached the top of the world's sixth-tallest mountain.

    Huang made his money by building one of the country's most powerful real estate conglomerates, a task he undertook after spending ten years as an official in the publicity department of the Communist Party. His passion for Chinese culture has helped make him famous, and through an effort called the National Treasures Coming Home campaign, he's focusing on the reclamation of lost relics.

    After the second break-in at the KODE, Huang contacted the museum. He wanted to fly to Bergen and tour the closed China exhibit. Once there, he was shown a collection of marble columns taken from the Old Summer Palace. Huang began to weep and told the museum director that the columns had no business being displayed in Norway. He donated $1.6 million to KODE, which he says was to upgrade its security. (A spokesman for KODE said the agreement did not concern security.) Soon thereafter the museum shipped seven of the marble columns back to China to be displayed at Peking University on permanent loan. (Huang denies any connection between his donation and the return of the columns.) The looting of the columns and their open display in a European museum “were our disgrace,” he told China Daily, and their return represented “dignity returned to the Chinese people.”

    In addition to visiting the KODE, Huang had toured the Château de Fontainebleau, not long before it was robbed. I asked him what he had heard about the theft and the rumor that the stolen relics had made their way back to China. He tightened his face into a small smile and laughed. “I only heard about it,” he said. “[That they might go back to China] is a good suggestion, in terms of result, but it encourages more stealing. I think it's because Chinese relics have good prices on the market nowadays.”
    Huang Nubo is the man. Why are some Chinese billionaires so cool? Copying this portion of the GQ article on I posted on Chinese antiques to Chinese Tycoons, CEOs & Tuhao.

    continued next post
    Gene Ching
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  4. #49
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    Billionaire Lui Che Woo

    There's a vid


    Hong Kong Billionaire Offers ‘Nobel Prizes’ With Double the Money

    By Blake Schmidt
    September 26, 2018, 2:00 PM PDT
    Billionaire Lui Che Woo seeks to promote ‘world civilization’
    Winners for positive energy, sustainability get $2.6 million

    After amassing a $15 billion fortune from casinos, Lui Che Woo wants to turn vice into virtue.

    While Elon Musk is trying to get humans to Mars and Li Ka-shing joined Bill Gates to battle infant malnutrition, Lui, who rose from a rugged childhood in Japan-occupied Hong Kong, has stepped into the shoes of Alfred Nobel.


    Lui Che WooPhotographer: Anthony Kwan/Bloomberg

    The gambling tycoon’s version of giving back involves awarding prizes that include a dinner-plate-sized trophy depicting Lui in his signature flat cap, together with a cash payout of HK$20 million ($2.56 million) -- double the amount of a Nobel Prize.

    Winners also get a dinner-plate-sized trophy showing the “amiable and kind smiling face of Dr. Lui,” according to an effusive description on the prize’s website, “as if sowing a seed of benevolence in the world.”

    The benevolence extends to three categories: sustainability, welfare development and positive energy, to be chosen via a three-tier structure that involves a recommendation committee, selection panels and the prize council. The latter consists of “five international personages,” including Lui, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a former Archbishop of Canterbury and the former Chief Executive of Hong Kong.


    Condoleezza Rice at the launch ceremony for the Lui Che Woo prize in 2015.Photographer: Xaume Olleros/Bloomberg

    “Positive energy represents people trying to understand and help each other,” Lui said in an interview at his office in Hong Kong’s North Point, surrounded by his antique Chinese pottery collection.

    This year’s winners, who will be honored at a ceremony on Oct. 3, are renewable energy advocate Hans-Josef Fell, a former parliament member for Germany’s Green Party; the World Meteorological Organization; and India’s Pratham Education Foundation.

    Nobel Alternative

    Lui’s prize, now in its third year, has gained attention as the Nobel committee comes under scrutiny for a #metoo moment, after a scandal at the Swedish Academy prompted the committee to defer awarding the literary prize this year. The Nobel committee said the current prize fund is 9 million Swedish kronor ($1 million). Lui says he isn’t trying to replace the 123-year-old awards but to offer an alternative.

    It’s not the first alternative originating in China. After the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to jailed Chinese dissident author Liu Xiaobo, Beijing reacted furiously, breaking diplomatic ties with Norway and embarking on a six-year freeze that sent Norwegian salmon exports to China plunging. The writer withered away in captivity before his death in 2017.

    The month after Xiaobo won the award, a group in Beijing created a rival award, called the Confucius Peace Prize, which stumbled out of the gate. The Taiwanese winner of the prize didn’t show up to accept it, and after China’s Ministry of Culture tried to shut the award down, some of the organizers reassembled in Hong Kong.


    The Confucius Peace Award committee in 2010.Photographer: Alexander F. Yuan/AP Photo

    Past winners of that award include Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Cambodia’s Hun Sen and Cuba’s Fidel Castro (who also boasted an Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights, named for the toppled Libyan leader).

    Lui said his philanthropic vein stems from his childhood, when he was denied a formal education during the Japanese invasion. He’s a big donor to Peking University, where he’s an honorary trustee after pledging $18 million. Macau has been less lucky with charitable donations, as the top six casino operators donated less than 0.1 percent of their revenue, according to a recent report by Macau University of Science and Technology.

    Gaming Magnate

    Born in Guangdong province, Lui’s family fled to Hong Kong when he was 4. He became a breadwinner for his five younger sisters and made his first fortune by buying WWII-era U.S. military equipment in Okinawa and reselling it in Hong Kong. In 1955 he founded K. Wah Group, quarrying construction materials. He then moved into real estate and in 2002 started Galaxy Entertainment, which won one of six gaming concessions in Macau and is now valued at $29 billion. Galaxy, which bought shares in Wynn Resorts after Steve Wynn stepped down as chairman, is the biggest casino operator in Macau.

    Lui’s prize “is not serving any political function," the tycoon said. “If it gets involved with politics, it will become complicated.” He declined to comment on the case of Liu Xiaobo.


    Lui Che Woo launches his Prize for World Civilization in 2015.Photographer: Xaume Olleros/Bloomberg

    Like Nobel, an arms dealer and the inventor of dynamite, Lui is using profits from his “vice” business -- in his case gambling -- to help fund the awards. He said his prize is designed to promote respect for others, mutual understanding, love of family and standing up for those who are weaker. Nobel, who established his foundation after a premature obituary in a French newspaper called him “the merchant of death,” included a prize for furthering the cause of international fraternity and peace.

    “To some extent, it is a bit similar to the Nobel Peace Prize but the concept of our prize is broader,” Lui said.

    — With assistance by Daniela Wei
    Gene Ching
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  5. #50
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    Billionaire Vicky

    I've just created a new thread dedicated to Vicky Zhao Wei by poaching the posts above from the Tiger Mothers and FOB Moms thread. There are surely other mentions of her on this forum, but I'm not going to link those up right now. I'm also copying this to the Chinese Tycoons, CEOs & Tuhao thread.

    Man, China is going after its starlets. First Fan Bingbing, now Vicky.

    NOVEMBER 20, 2018 / 6:47 AM / UPDATED 6 HOURS AGO
    China bars actress Zhao Wei from holding key positions in companies for five years
    3 MIN READ

    HONG KONG (Reuters) - Billionaire Chinese actress Zhao Wei and her husband have been barred from taking on key positions at listed companies for five years for violating securities regulations, the Shanghai Stock Exchange said on Tuesday.


    Actress Zhao Wei, member of Venezia 73 International Jury, poses for photographers during a photocall at the 73rd Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy August 31, 2016. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi

    The exchange’s announcement comes more than a month after another Chinese actress Fan Bingbing came under fire for failing to pay millions of dollars in taxes and fines.

    On Tuesday, the exchange said Zhao and her husband Huang Youlong, as well as several other former executives of Tibet Longwei Culture Media and Zhejiang Sunriver Culture Co Ltd, were unfit to be directors, supervisors and senior executives of listed companies.

    They will not be allowed to assume these positions for five years, the exchange said.

    Zhejiang Sunriver, Tibet Longwei, Zhao and Huang were all not immediately available for comment.

    In late 2016, Tibet Longwei, controlled by Zhao and Huang, made a failed attempt to buy a 29.1 percent stake in Zhejiang Wanjia, which was later taken over by another investor and renamed Zhejiang Sunriver Culture.

    Longwei’s bid had then drawn the scrutiny of the China Securities Regulatory Commission regarding information disclosure and its ability in financing takeovers as there were misleading statements and major omissions in the filings.

    U.S.-China rift divides Asian summit
    In November 2017, China’s securities regulator fined and barred Zhao, who became a household name in China for starring in popular TV dramas, and Huang from trading in the mainland stock market for five years due to the takeover case.

    “Due to the celebrity effect, Tibet Longwei has severely misled the market and its investors. This has seriously disrupted normal market operations and order,” the exchange said on Tuesday.

    Zhao and Fan’s cases have prompted the Chinese government to crack down on celebrity hype.

    In November, state media quoted the National Radio and Television Administration as saying that Chinese broadcasters and online entertainment sites should avoid celebrity hype and crack down on fake audience and click-through rates.

    Reporting by Twinnie Siu in Hong Kong and Lee Chyen Yee in Singapore; editing by Louise Heavens
    Gene Ching
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  6. #51
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    Annabel Yao

    Huawei founder’s debutante daughter Annabel Yao: ‘I still consider myself a normal girl’
    Yao, chosen to perform the opening waltz at Le Bal des Débutantes in Paris, was one of 19 young women to make their society debut this year
    Harvard computer science student and ballerina says, ‘As much as I enjoy coding … I have a passion for fashion, PR and entertainment’
    PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 05 December, 2018, 8:47am
    UPDATED : Thursday, 06 December, 2018, 7:06pm
    Jing Zhang
    http://twitter.com/jingerzhanger
    jing.zhang@scmp.com



    While Le Bal des Debutantes in Paris each year is a nod to the tradition of young society ladies entering the elite social scene of Europe, these days it courts modern debutantes, aged 16 to 21, who are chosen for their looks, brains and famous parents – prominent in business, entertainment and politics.


    Annabel Yao danced with European royalty at Le Bal des Debutantes in Paris last month.

    The schedule at the event, organised by Ophélie Renouard, is full of young women such as Baroness Ludmilla von Oppenheim, from Germany; Julia McCaw, daughter of AT&T founder Craig McCaw; and Annabel Yao, daughter of Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei – the latter of whom was one of three debutantes chosen for the opening waltz this year.

    “I definitely treated this as a debut to the world,” says Yao when we speak just after the ball. “From now on, I’ll no longer be this girl living in her own world, I’ll be stepping into the adult world where I have to watch my own actions and have my actions be watched by others.”

    Today’s Le Bal, or Crillon Ball, is a diverse affair, a microcosm of the shifting tides of the global elite. Of the 19 debutantes of 2018, there were young ladies from India and America, Europeans from Portugal, France, Belgium and Germany, as well as Hong Kong’s Angel Lee, Kayla Uytengsu from the Philippines and China’s Yao.

    Yao – a 21-year-old Harvard computer science student and ballerina who has lived in Britain, Hong Kong and Shanghai – is one of several Chinese debutantes in recent years. Hollywood offspring, such as the daughters of actors Forest Whitaker, Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone, have also become Le Bal regulars.

    “All the girls were down-to-earth, easygoing, helpful and outgoing. No one was pretentious,” says Yao. “All of them attended top universities or high schools like Stanford, Brown and Columbia, so it’s a group of girls who are privileged, but also work really hard.”

    As they swap their jeans for tiaras and couture gowns and trade teenage antics for waltzing, the girls get to play fairytale princesses for three days and make their grand debut in high society.


    Annabel Yao, daughter of the founder of Huawei, Ren Zhengfei, and Yao Ling

    They all arrive in Paris two days before the ball to meet, socialise with other girls and their cavaliers (Yao’s cavalier was the young Count Gaspard de Limburg-Stirum), rehearse and take part in portrait sessions.

    Girls are given questionnaires about the fashion styles they like, and then choose from a selection. Yao donned a champagne gold J Mendel gown.

    “An American designer with a very French style … I wanted something modern,” she says. “I’m not super girlie inside, so I prefer something more chic and not so princessy … It’s very elegant, and I’m not a fan of very [strongly] pigmented hues. I also loved the tulle texture of the dress, as it reminds me of a ballerina.”


    Annabel Yao wore a J Mendel gown at the ball

    “I definitely feel very honoured to be included, as there are only 19 girls in the world this year,” Yao says. “It means I have to work harder, try to accomplish great things in my life and be a role model for other girls.”

    She adds: “As people who have more privilege than others, it’s more important for us to help those with less opportunity. I want to get involved in philanthropy and charity … I still consider myself a normal girl; it’s important for me to work hard and better myself every day.

    “My daily life is actually pretty boring compared to this. I usually live like a normal student.”


    Annabel Yao at the ball in Paris. “My daily life is actually pretty boring compared to this,” she says.

    Computer science is a heavy subject with a high workload, so she studies a lot. Her spare time is often taken up at the Harvard Ballet company (she’s been dancing since childhood). “I try to dance as much as possible,” she says.

    A quick glance at the Ivy League student’s social media shows her jetting around the world wearing Dior, Louis Vuitton and Saint Laurent, but she’s quick to show her serious side. This summer, she did an internship at Microsoft “on a team focusing on machine learning and image recognition”.

    However, she adds: “As much as I enjoy coding, I enjoy personal interactions a lot … I have a passion for fashion, PR and entertainment.”

    In the future, she sees herself working on the business side of technology. “I’ll try to integrate the tech knowledge I have,” she says. “I don’t think I’ll be a software engineer but maybe I’ll be more on the management side. I enjoy building connections.”

    This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Huawei founder’s daughter a belle of the debutante ball
    Annabel looks disturbingly like one of my shimei.
    Gene Ching
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  7. #52
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    Huang Xiangmo

    Huang Xiangmo: China billionaire mocks 'giant baby' Australia
    5 hours ago


    AFP/GETTY
    There are growing worries in Australia about Chinese influence

    A Chinese billionaire and political donor has dubbed Australia a "giant baby" after he lost residency rights.

    It is an "objective fact" that the country has a baby's "innate characteristics", Huang Xiangmo told state tabloid Global Times.

    The property developer has lived in Sydney since 2011 and has donated millions to major political parties.

    But he was stranded overseas when the government rejected his citizenship bid and cancelled his permanent residency.

    The Sydney Morning Herald first reported the visa denial earlier this month, describing Mr Huang as "Beijing's former top lobbyist in Australia".

    He reportedly has links with the Chinese Communist Party, and Australia's national security agency has warned politicians not to accept money from him.

    It comes amid a row over Chinese influence in Australia which has strained relations between the two nations.

    What did Mr Huang say?
    Mr Huang attacked his adopted country in his interview with the Global Times, a newspaper known for its strident, nationalist tone.

    Global Times
    Verified account
    @globaltimesnews

    More
    #Australia has “characteristics of a giant baby:” tycoon Huang Xiangmo http://bit.ly/2I8QIB5

    8:00 AM - 11 Feb 2019
    Asked what he thought was behind the tense relations in recent years, the billionaire said: "The history of Australia has determined the innate characteristics of a giant baby."

    "This is an objective fact and it does not mean Australia has to feel inferior," he said. "The growth of a giant baby takes time, and Australia still has a long way to go."

    Mr Huang said he moved to the country for its "beautiful scenery and simple folk customs" and accused some Australian media outlets of smearing him.

    Who is Mr Huang?

    The billionaire has reportedly donated about A$2.7 million ($1.91m; £1.49m) to both major parties.

    Mr Huang said these donations came from his desire to "promote Chinese people's legal involvement in politics".

    He was linked with Sam Dastyari, a Labor party politician who announced his resignation in 2017 after making pro-Beijing remarks over the South China Sea dispute.

    Mr Dastyari reportedly told Mr Huang he may be under surveillance - something the senator denies.

    Why are relations strained between China and Australia?

    Australia has been increasingly vocal about what it sees as growing Chinese influence in recent years.

    Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull urged a crackdown on "covert, coercive" activities by foreign governments in 2017, noting "disturbing reports" of Chinese influence while stressing the rules were not targeted at any one country.

    That same year Chinese students complained about teaching materials at Australian universities - drawing fears that China was exerting pressure on campuses.

    Last November, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a new multi-billion dollar fund for Pacific island nations, seemingly to counter Chinese influence in the area.

    "Australia cannot take its influence in the south-west Pacific for granted," he said, calling the region "our patch".

    Top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi stressed the two nations should work together in the ocean.

    Since 2011 Beijing has become the second-largest donor of foreign aid to Pacific islands after Australia.
    I imagine this connects to Shaolin Temple OZ
    Gene Ching
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  8. #53
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    If you've been wondering where I've been going with this thread...

    ...this is where.

    Marisa Fernandez Feb 27
    China had the most billionaires in 2018



    Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma is the world’s 22nd richest person with $39 billion. Photo: Sun Qing/VCG via Getty Images

    Beijing was the city with the most billionaires in 2018, at 103, followed by New York at 92 and Hong Kong with 69, according to wealth compiler Hurun Report, China's version of the Forbes rich list.

    By the numbers: China had 658 billionaires; the U.S. had 584; the world had 2,470, per the AP. The bulk of the wealth last year poured in from the technology, media and telecom sectors. Despite China's overall strength in numbers, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates — both Americans — held the top two spots in the list.
    Gene Ching
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  9. #54
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    New PRC philanthropy

    A New Generation of Philanthropy in China
    March 26, 2019 12:00 p.m. ET


    From left: Lawrence Chan, Niu Gensheng, Dee Dee Chan, Jet Li, Jack Ma, Li Ka-shing. ILLUSTRATION BY GLUEKIT; SOURCE IMAGES: GETTY IMAGES AND BLOOMBERG

    In Hong Kong, home to some of the richest people in the world, philanthropist Dee Dee Chan is making sure her generation learns how to give back.

    In 2014, Chan, who is in her 30s, started a group for her peers—young people from families with at least US$500 million in assets who play an active role in their families’ businesses—to learn about philanthropy and to put it into practice. The hope is to “raise the ‘future generals’ who will make a huge impact on society through their own charitable efforts,” she says.

    Chan is the granddaughter of billionaire Chan Chak Fu, who ran a global hotel and real estate business. Today, she’s managing director at Park Lane Capital Holdings, formed in 2007 from the fortune made by her father, Lawrence Chan, who developed and operated hotels and real estate projects.

    She’s also director of the Seal of Love Charitable Foundation, a foundation started by her father in 2010, which donated 80 million Hong Kong dollars (US$10.2 million) in 2017 to the School of Hotel and Tourism Management at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University to support an industry that has become a growing employment sector for the underprivileged in Southeast Asia.

    The six or seven core members in each of the two chapters of Chan’s Next Generational Organization (NGO, for short) contribute to a collective pot that they allocate as a group, traveling twice a year for field visits to grassroots nonprofits in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. “The point is really to make mistakes early together and also have a forum in which we can actually do this together,” Chan says.

    Lawrence Chan, 65, says his daughter’s NGO chapters will redefine philanthropy, as his generation—including Hong Kong’s wealthiest man and philanthropist, Li Ka-shing—is “starting to fade away.”

    “ The point is to have a forum in which we can actually do this together. ”

    —Dee Dee Chan
    Great fortunes have been made in Asia in the past decade. But as the region’s riches have swelled, and as a younger generation emerges, China’s wealthy are increasingly seeking to maintain their family legacies and to give back. Groups have formed to encourage collaboration and education, including the China Global Philanthropy Institute, founded by three Chinese philanthropists—Niu Gensheng, He Qiaonyu, and Ye Qingjun—along with U.S. billionaires Bill Gates and Ray Dalio. Jack Ma, through the Alibaba Foundation, meanwhile, has sponsored the biannual Xin Philanthropy Conference since 2016.

    Ma represents a newer, more visible wave of philanthropists who are trained abroad, globally engaged, and in touch with the concepts of philanthropy, says Anthony Saich, director of the Ash Center at Harvard, which runs the China Philanthropy Project. But there are a rising number of individual philanthropists within China who are having a profound influence, notably Niu Gensheng, a billionaire born to extreme poverty who made a fortune as the founder of China Mengniu Dairyin Inner Mongolia. Niu, 61, began the Lao Niu Foundation in 2004 to support the environment, cultural education, and development of the philanthropic sector.

    One strategy that the Lao Niu Foundation is using to boost philanthropy is to train nonprofit professionals, “so that they’re regarded as professionals, just as public officials and private-sector individuals are,” says Melissa Berman, president of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, which is aiding the foundation.

    The One Foundation, founded by Chinese actor Jet Li, is also helping to strengthen nonprofits by being transparent about what they fund, and which outcomes they achieve, Berman says.

    While Niu and others have turned to the West for inspiration and practical advice, Rob Rosen, a director at the Gates Foundation, expects philanthropy in China to remain uniquely Chinese.

    China’s philanthropists will want to know whether their funds are “being directed toward important issues in a deeply thoughtful way, and if they are taking an appropriate level of risk to really lead to bold change,” Rosen says. “They’re definitely on the pathway there.”

    THREADS
    Jet Li’s ONE Foundation
    Jack Ma & Alibaba
    Chinese Tycoons, CEOs & Tuhao
    Gene Ching
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  10. #55
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    Alex Shih

    Hong Kong Property Tycoon Gave Away Children’s $400m Inheritance
    By Shawna Kwan and Venus Feng
    April 22, 2019, 2:00 PM PDT
    Alex Shih’s dad gave $400 million Centaline stake to charity
    Like many other Hong Kongers, Shih is saving for first house

    The heir to the biggest real estate agency in property-mad Hong Kong doesn’t own a house.

    Not only that, he won’t inherit his father’s stake in Centaline Group, estimated to be worth about $400 million according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, because it was donated to charity more than a decade ago.

    But Alex Shih isn’t perturbed, even though he’s missing out on the wealth that the offspring of some Hong Kong tycoons are taking control of along with the family business. Li Ka-shing, the city’s richest man, last year handed the reins to son Victor, while billionaire Lee Shau Kee last month said he was considering retiring from Henderson Land Development Co. and putting his two sons in charge.

    “I personally accept it,’’ the 30-year-old Shih said of his father’s decision not to pass on the family fortune to his three children. “He told us when we were very young and we didn’t have a choice. He would say that it’s better not to lead a life that’s too comfortable in one go. You’ll treasure more if you gain things step by step.”

    Shih took over running Centaline, which handles two out of every five property transactions in Hong Kong, at the start of this year when he was named vice-chairman. He is set to become chairman when his 70-year-old father Wing-Ching Shih retires, which he expects to happen sometime soon.

    He ascended to the top job after a difficult year for Centaline, which was founded in 1978. Commission revenue rose a bare 1 percent to about HK$19 billion ($2.4 billion) last year, and net income slumped 52 percent to HK$501 million, as a downturn in Hong Kong’s property market and growing competition in mainland China took its toll.

    Hong Kong’s property market has since rebounded, and Shih is looking to modernize the agency. He oversaw the introduction of virtual-reality house viewing in 2017, and more recently a blockchain platform to streamline sales and rental agreements.

    “The company is like a big ship,” Shih said. “I am trying to provide new technology tools to make it move faster.”

    While the firm handles millions of dollars of transactions a day, the softly-spoken Shih says he earns only a regular salary. The foundation that his father donated the Centaline stake to aims to alleviate poverty in rural China, from building infrastructure to supporting under-privileged children’s education.

    “My friends who are working in finance are making more money than I do,” he said.

    A graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science, Shih said he considers himself an average Hong Kong citizen. His office is small and sparsely decorated, and he enjoys hiking and playing badminton -- hardly the pursuits of the billionaire set.


    Shih in his office.Photographer: Billy H.C. Kwok/Bloomberg

    His modest upbringing has also helped keep him humble -- his father eschewed the elite international schools favored by Hong Kong’s wealthy and enrolled his children in local government-subsidized schools, and instilled his philosophy that money should be used to help the less fortunate from an early age.

    He even worked as a real estate agent when he first joined the family business. “It was quite tough -- staying outdoors to compete with other agents for limited customers, rain or shine.”

    And, like many other millennials in a city ranked the world’s least-affordable for the past nine years, he’s still saving for his first house.

    Shih’s advice to his peers? Be realistic.

    He aims to buy a two-bedroom apartment in a middle-class neighborhood in West Kowloon -- or the slightly more upmarket Ho Man Tin area if his parents chip in, citing those areas good public transport links and potential for price growth as draw cards -- a far cry from the multi-million dollar mansions his agency sells.

    “The first home may not be the one you want the most. But at least you get on the property ladder and then you slowly climb up.”
    I'd be like "**** dad. that's cold."
    Gene Ching
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  11. #56
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    Ding Chen

    Chinese tycoon’s son whines about Canadian taxes after buying $3.8 million supercar with daddy’s money
    Taxes made up about $680,000 of that total
    by Alex Linder April 18, 2019 in News



    Move over, Wang Sicong. There’s a new most infamous fuerdai on the block and his name is Ding Chen.

    Chen made headlines in Canada last week after complaining about the massive tax bill on his custom Bugatti supercar, bought through his daddy’s credit card at a Vancouver dealership. According to an invoice posted to Instagram by Chen, the purchase incurred C$210,404 ($157,000) in federal goods and service tax along with $C697,939 ($522,000) in provincial taxes for a total of C$908,343 ($680,000) in taxes.

    With a pre-tax sales price of C$4.2 million ($US3.1 million) that leaves Chen’s father footing a bill of upwards of C$5.1 million ($US3.8 million) for the Bugatti Chiron. “These taxes… my heart feels tired,” Chen wrote over the image of the invoice. Last year, British Columbia increased taxes on cars worth more than C$150,000 to 20 percent.



    Fortunately for Chen, it seems like his dad should be able to afford to splurge a bit. Starting out as a duck farmer, Chen Mailin is the owner of a Chinese investment firm. In 2015, he gained attention for purchasing one of Vancouver’s most lavish mansions for C$51.8 million ($40 million).

    Judging from his Instagram account, the younger Chen had been putting his father’s money to good use in Canada, posting pics of luxury watches, fancy cars and a private jet with his name on the tail.



    Unfortunately, Chen’s Instagram account has since been deleted, so we will no longer be able to stay updated on the progress of his Bugatti.

    [Images via SCMP]
    fuerdi = 富二代 'rich 2nd gen'
    Gene Ching
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  12. #57
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    RIP Wang Jun

    Wang Jun, the ‘princeling’ who chaired one of the world’s biggest asset-owning conglomerates at Citic Group, dies at the age of 78
    Wang Jun, former chairman of Citic Group and the Poly Group, has died at the age of 78, according to Chinese state media
    Wang was the son of Wang Zhen, one of the Eight Elders of the Chinese Communist Party and a founding elder of the modern People’s Republic
    Daniel Ren
    Published: 11:52am, 11 Jun, 2019


    An undated photograph of Wang Jun. Photo: Baidu

    Wang Jun, the son of one of communist China’s founding elders and a former chairman of the country’s largest state conglomerate, died on Monday, aged 78.
    Wang died at 10.56pm on June 10, according to a report by state-owned news outlet Thepaper.cn in Shanghai, citing unidentified sources and without elaborating. Xinhua News Agency, the government’s mouthpiece, has yet to report the news.
    Wang, who carried the rank of a full government minister, was chairman of China International Trust and Investment Corporation, better known as Citic, between 1995 and 2006.
    With 375 billion yuan (US$54 billion) in 2013 revenue, the Beijing-based state investment vehicle was China’s largest company and one of the biggest owners of foreign assets in the world, operating a range of businesses from banking and finance to real estate and heavy industries. The company has yet to issue a statement.


    Wang Jun, president of China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC) and Poly Technologies, during a press conference in Beijing in 1995. Photo: AFP

    The company was founded in 1979 as a vehicle for the Chinese government to raise capital when it embarked on capitalist market reforms in the late 1970s. Citic’s founder Rong Yiren – dubbed the Red Capitalist – was China’s vice-president from 1993 until 1998.
    Wang was born in Hunan province in 1941, while his father Wang Zhen was a brigade commander in one of the most celebrated commune farms operated by the then communist guerillas. After the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, the senior Wang was hailed as one of the Eight Elders of the Communist Party, and rose to the rank of the nation’s vice-president, between 1988 and 1993.


    Wang Jun (left) and Larry Yung Chi-Kin (right), the son of Citic’s founder Rong Yiren during a signing ceremony in Hainan on 16 November 2004. Yung was the wealthiest Chinese businessman of mainland China with an estimated wealth of US$2.9 billion in 2013, according to Hurun Report. Photo: SCMP

    The son of the late vice-president worked as a shipyard engineer at Shanghai’s Jiangnan Shipyard in 1996 after graduating from Harbin Military Engineering Institute. He served for two years with the People’s Liberation Army’s naval forces between 1977 and 1978, before joining the nascent Citic as a department chief.
    Wang was promoted to Citic’s president in 1993 and was elevated into the top position of the conglomerate three years later as chairman of the board. At that time before China’s membership in the World Trade Organisation and before hundreds of Chinese companies raised capital through global stock market listings, Citic was the largest single Chinese conglomerate. It answered directly to China’s State Council, as the government cabinet was called.
    During his lifetime, Wang also chaired the board of Poly Group, a state conglomerate with businesses that stretch from antiquities to real estate and military supplies and armaments.


    An undated photo of Wang Jun at the Great Hall of the People near Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Wang was appointed between 2003 and 2008 as a delegate to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a political advisory body that meets every year in the Chinese capital. Photo: Sina

    Citic Pacific, the international arm of the group, was at the centre of a financial scandal in 2008 when it had to write off HK$14.7 billion (US$1.88 billion) in losses due to wrong-way bets in the currency market. The loss forced Larry Yung Chi-kin – the son of Citic’s founder and then one of China’s wealthiest men – to step down in 2009 as the Hong Kong-listed company’s executive chairman. Yung is also known in mainland China as Rong Zhijian.
    By the time the scandal broke, Wang had already reached his retirement age of 65, and had stepped down to make way for Kong Dan to take over the helm of the group.
    A chain smoker, Wang loved golf, and was the honorary vice-chairman of the China Golf Association, a curious title in a country where the elitist sport coexists uneasily with the proletarian ethos of the ruling Communist Party.
    Under Chinese President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on corruption and rid the Communist Party of ostentatious consumption, golfing was frowned upon, and club memberships for high-ranking government officials became an automatic flag for investigation.
    Wang was a princeling, as the children of China’s Communist Party leaders are known, and he was a senior among equals in the tight-knit community. Other prominent princelings include Bo Xilai, the former Chongqing commissar now serving a life term in jail for corruption, who was the son of Bo Yibo, one of the Eight Elders; and China’s president Xi, the son of the late Xi Zhongxun, who was a vice-chairman of China’s legislature.
    Wang is survived by his wife Ye Xiaoying, the youngest daughter of the late Marshal Ye Jianying, one of the country’s founding leaders. The couple has two sons Wang Jingchen and Wang Jingyang, and a daughter Wang Jingjing, according to Chinese media reports.

    This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Ex-Citic Group boss Wang Jun dies at 78
    $2.9B USD in 2013 - wonder what he was worth now...
    Gene Ching
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  13. #58
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    Zhang Xiaolei busted

    Zhang Xiaolei, founder of Chinese fintech firm Qbao, to serve 15-year jail firm for fraudulent fundraising
    Zhang Xiaolei founded the online fundraising platform Qbao in 2012
    Court confiscates 100 million yuan worth of Zhang’s assets for his role in the illegal fundraising scheme
    Daniel Ren
    Published: 5:37pm, 21 Jun, 2019


    In this image taken from an undated video footage run by China’s CCTV, Qbao’s founder Zhang Xiaolei speaks with police while in custody in Nanjing in eastern China’s Jiangsu province. Photo: CCTV via AP Video

    Zhang Xiaolei, a prominent figure in China’s fintech sector, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his involvement in a Ponzi scheme that involved at least 50 billion yuan (US$7.25 billion) of investors’ money.
    The Nanjing Intermediate People’s Court in Jiangsu province handed down the punishment to Zhang, 50, after charging him with financial fraud and embezzling depositors’ money through illegal fundraising, and confiscated 100 million yuan of his assets, Xinhua reported on Friday.
    Zhang, who founded Qbao.com, an online fundraising platform in 2012, pleaded guilty and said he would not appeal the ruling, it added.
    The punishment is the latest example that has exposed high risks in China’s once thriving fintech industry.
    Banquets, lies and protests: the collapse of Qbao, another popular Chinese Ponzi scheme
    Qbao was touted as a “unique ecosystem” to support small businesses three years ago by state-run China Central Television.
    “There are big lessons for Chinese financial regulators to learn after the collapse of a large number of fintech firms,” said Ding Haifeng, a consultant with Integrity Financial Consulting in Shanghai. “Bold steps taken to reform the finance industry offered huge loopholes for such unscrupulous people to tap and pocket illicit gains.”
    Qbao offered annualised returns between 20 and 60 per cent to investors, which had 200 million registered users.
    Zhang handed himself to police in Jiangsu province at the end of 2017 after his business failed to generate enough cash to repay depositors.
    Qbao was the main sponsor of the Spanish soccer team Real Sociedad, but it dumped the Chinese company in February 2018 when it could not keep up with its financial commitment to the La Liga team.
    It is unknown how much of investors’ money deposited at Qbao has been recovered.
    The Qbao case is the biggest scandal in China’s fintech sector after regulators, in 2015, uncovered frauds by Ezubao, one of the country’s largest peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms which illegally raised 76 billion yuan from more than 900,000 investors.
    In 2017, Ding Ning, head of Ezubao, was sentenced to life in prison for his role as the ringleader in the Ponzi scheme.
    P2P businesses grew by leaps and bounds since 2013 when Beijing encouraged online firms to help reform the country’s banking system.
    The P2P platforms are supposed to act as matchmakers between borrowers and investors, but thousands of businesses illegally raised funds from depositors before lending them to companies such as property developers to chase lofty interest income.
    Qbao also organised banquets for “bao fans” – the investors who had put their faith in the company and its business model.
    Chinese police investigated more than 10,000 cases of illegal fundraising last year, up 22 per cent from 2017, according to the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the highest national level agency responsible for prosecution and investigation.
    It said that the total amount of money involved in these scams hit 300 billion yuan, more than double the figure a year earlier.

    This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Qbao founder gets 15-year prison term for Ponzi scheme
    One thing I'll say about the chicoms - when they catch a corrupt tycoon, they make them do time.
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  14. #59
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    Eric Tse

    Eric Tse, 24, just became a billionaire overnight
    Jessie Yeung, CNN
    Updated 9:38 AM ET, Thu October 24, 2019


    Hong Kong billionaire Eric Tse with Rihanna in a photo posted in September 2017.

    (CNN)He's 24 years old. He parties with Rihanna and Bella Hadid. He watches basketball games with Yao Ming.
    And on Tuesday, he became a billionaire.
    Eric Tse, who recently graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's prestigious Wharton School of Finance, was gifted about $3.88 billion in his family company's shares on Tuesday.
    Tse's parents are both executive directors of Sino Biopharmaceutical Limited, and on Tuesday they gave him a fifth of the company's total issued shares "as a gift at nil consideration," according to a company statement.
    Tse, who is from Hong Kong, is the latest member of Asia's booming billionaire club -- but apparently wants no part in the wealth rankings. The company statement said "he will endeavour not to participate in such rankings in his own name, and would recommend participating in such nominations in the name of the Tse Ping family."
    The statement suggests he wants to keep a low profile -- yet as documented on Instagram, he's been rubbing elbows with the rich and famous long before the share transfers. In 2017, he posed with renowned models Bella Hadid and Lily Aldridge at a Bulgari party in Venice. Just a few months later, he posted a photo with singer and Fenty Beauty owner Rihanna in New York, captioning it, "Party with my idol."
    His Instagram posts tell the story of a globetrotting life -- snowboarding in Japan, parasailing in Thailand, swimming with dolphins in the Bahamas.
    erictse0816



    erictse0816's profile picture
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    #最萌身高差 #withthegiant #姚明 #YaoMing
    189w
    MARCH 6, 2016
    He's also posted photos with some of the most prominent athletes in China, like Olympic gold-medalist swimmer Sun Yang and basketball icon Yao Ming.
    He has met political leaders and members of royalty like Princess Charlene of Monaco and former French first lady Carla Bruni -- but more striking are the close ties he seems to have with mainland Chinese politicians.
    That's not surprising, as his father Tse Ping was previously a committee member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country's top political advisory body.
    On October 1, the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the younger Tse attended Beijing celebrations open only to invited guests and dignitaries.
    The company statement on Tuesday said Tse's parents had transferred the shares to him "to refine the management and inheritance of family wealth." The document was signed by the company's chairwoman, Theresa Tse -- Eric's sister.
    Shares aside, Tse also gained a new position -- executive director of the company's executive board committee. According to the company statement, before being given this role, he previously served as CEO at the North America arm of recruitment company Liepin.
    CNN has reached out to Tse for comment.
    Tse is part of a new wave of wealth in China. A "rich list" released earlier this month showed that although Chinese wealth is concentrated in the hands of tech entrepreneurs, pharmaceutical moguls -- like those in Tse's family -- are making ground. Pharmaceutical moguls make up 8% of China's rich list, double that of 10 years ago.
    China's young rich also sparked last year's viral "flaunt your wealth" challenge, which later spread worldwide. The challenge involved people photographing themselves pretending to fall out of luxury cars or trip, spreading their expensive belongings in front of them as if they've just casually fallen out of their pockets.
    According to a new report released Monday, there are also more Chinese than Americans in the richest 10% of people in the world -- a first.
    The last line is the kicker and kind of the reason I started this thread.
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  15. #60
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    $38m

    Macau tycoon Alvin Chau pays mistress Mandy Lieu $38 million “breakup fee” after she leaves him
    Chau refused to divorce his wife and elevate Lieu
    by Alex Linder November 4, 2019 in News



    While model Mandy Lieu isn’t going to become the wife of Macau casino tycoon Alvin Chau, she has received a nice consolation price.

    Lieu, 34, has been Chau’s mistress for the past five years. However, after seeing that Chau, 45, has no intention of divorcing his wife, 38-year-old Heidi Chan, Lieu has decided to end the relationship, receiving a generous “break-up fee” of HK$300 million ($38 million), according to report last week from Apple Daily.

    A Malaysian-American model, Lieu began dating Chau in 2014. The two made no secret about the relationship, going out together hand-in-hand. Lieu has given birth to three of Chau’s children, raising them in London.

    Meanwhile, Chau also has two children with his wife (as well as another son from a previous marriage) who has publicly told other women to stay away from her husband. Chan also reportedly wanted a divorce. Chau, however, refused, wanting to keep his family intact at the expense of his mistress, his other family, and his wallet.

    Though most of us wouldn’t ask for money after dumping someone, that’s not the way things work in the world of wealthy tycoons in Greater China where magnates are rumored to pay off their former girlfriends or mistresses with extravagant sums.
    Wonder what Chau is worth...
    Gene Ching
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