11:48 – France: the boss of the Chinese group HNA falls and dies while being photographed



[ad_1]

The boss of the Chinese conglomerate HNA, active in tourism, logistics and air transport, has made a fatal fall by wanting to be photographed in the south-east of France, we learned on Wednesday. concordant sources.

Wang Jian, 57, founder of HNA, died Tuesday, said the group in a statement. His death occurred while visiting the village of Bonnieux (Vaucluse), in the Luberon, have the French gendarmes said.

"He had climbed a parapet in height to have his picture taken and he fell," they said, adding that the firefighters could not revive him.

The HNA group, founded in 2000, is one of the conglomerates that have been in the sights of Chinese regulators since last year, worried about the size of the loans they have contracted to finance their acquisitions, particularly abroad. [19659002] The parent company of the Chinese airline Hainan Airlin The group has grown rapidly with all-out acquisitions.

HNA has spent at least $ 50 billion over the past two years on investments and equity investments, not without heated controversy over opacity of its complex shareholding structures

HNA thus entered the capital of several foreign airlines: Aigle Azur (France), Virgin Australia (Australia), TAP (Portugal) or Azul (Brazil).

logistics, he got his hands on the Swiss Gategroup, service provider on board for air transport. In 2016, it also announced the purchase of the US $ 10 billion aircraft leasing arm of the US group CIT.

HNA also acquired the American Ingram Micro, one of the world's largest distributors of products electronic and computer; it owns a stake in the German Deutsche Bank, and has acquired a quarter of the capital of Hilton hotels for $ 6.5 billion.

By the end of 2017, HNA announced that its total debt amounted to approximately $ 638 billion. yuan (81.5 billion euros), up 36% from the end of 2016. Taking into account all entities it controls, we could reach a debt of about 1,000 billion yuan, According to the Bloomberg financial agency

At the request of the Chinese government, HNA is trying to sell and dispose of expensive real estate badets to replenish its cash

© 2018 AFP. All rights of reproduction and representation reserved. All information reproduced in this section (news, photos, logos) is protected by intellectual property rights held by AFP. Therefore, none of this information may be reproduced, modified, reposted, translated, exploited commercially or reused in any way without the prior written consent of AFP.

[ad_2]
Source link