A Chinese billionaire died in the south of France. The banal gesture that brought his death

following a major conglomerate, HNA, which is present in several fields of activities, such as tourism, logistics and air transport, informs AFP.

The founder of the HNA group lost his life in the village of Bonnieux. "He climbed a high railing to take a picture and fell," they said, adding that local firefighters tried to revive the Chinese tycoon, but failed to do so.

the billionaire wanted to capture a local panoramic photo scaling a wall. To do this, Wang Jian took a moment, but then fell from a height of 10 meters

The local gendarmerie brigade was instructed to conduct an investigation that favored the accident accident [19659008]. ] According to the HNA group, Wang Jian is on a business trip to France. The fortune of the Chinese magnate was estimated at $ 1.7 billion by Forbes magazine.

Wang Jian has specialized in civil aviation since his studies at the State University of China. In the early 1990s, Hainan Airlines was established

HNA, "a Gray Rhinoceros"

According to the New York Times, through a long-standing collaboration with his twin brother, Wang Wei, Wang Jian, who was selling services and materials to Hainan Airlines, turned this small regional business into a huge conglomerate.

Currently, HNA, who grew up in logistics and especially in tourism, is considered a "rhinoceros". "gray," according to the terms used by the Chinese press, which refers to the collimator companies of the Beijing authorities for their worrying debt level

HNA increased its investments abroad, becoming in May 2017 its first shareholder Deutsche Bank, with a 9.9% stake

In October 2016, the Chinese conglomerate announced that it had acquired a quarter of its share capital The HNA has spent at least $ 50 billion in the last two years years in investments and takeovers, but there was no controversy, generated by opacity

HNA entered the property of several foreign airlines – Aigle Azur (France), Virgin Australia (Australia), TAP (Portugal) and Azul (Brazil)

In logistics, the Chinese group acquires the Swiss company Gategroup, a provider of ground handling services for air transport. also acquired the US Air Force Lease Division for $ 10 billion in 2016.

At the end of 2017, HNA announced that its total debt amounted to about 638 billion yuan. (81.5 billion euros), up 36% over end of 2016.

Given all the entities that it controls, the Chinese group's debt could reach 1 trillion yuan, according to the Bloomberg agency

At the request of the Chinese government, HNA is trying to carry out certain missions and sell some of its real estate assets to obtain money [19659005] CLICK HERE to install the free ProTV app for Android phones and iPhone

<! – Wang Jian ->

Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist