Shares Plunge as China Voices Concern Over ‘Systemic Risks’
By SUI-LEE WEEJUNE 22, 2017
BEIJING — Some of China’s largest companies may pose a systemic risk to the country’s banks, a senior banking official said on Thursday, in the latest signal
that Beijing is ratcheting up scrutiny of a financial system plagued with hidden debt that poses a hazard to the health of the economy.
They included the publicly traded arms of Fosun International, which in recent years bought the Club Med chain of resorts
and other properties; Dalian Wanda, which owns the AMC Theaters chain in the United States and has long sought deals in Hollywood; and the HNA Group, an acquisitive conglomerate with murky ownership.
At a briefing on Thursday in Beijing, Mr. Liu, deputy head of the commission’s prudential regulation bureau, said
that his agency was looking into “systemic risk of some large enterprises,” according to numerous media accounts, and that the risk could spread to other institutions.
Anbang, which rose to prominence in recent years for big deals including its purchase of the
Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York, had been under official pressure over how it raises money
