Head of China Resources SOE Song Lin under graft probe

Want China Times, Lan Hsiao-wei and Staff Reporter 2014-04-19

Song Lin during a press conference. (File photo/CNS)

China is investigating Song Lin, chairperson of China Resources Holdings, the nation's largest overseas state-owned enterprise, for suspected grave violations involving several billion yuan, according to a report in our sister paper, Taipei's China Times, citing a statement on the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

He is the nation's highest ranking official to be under a graft investigation according to the paper.

Yesterday's announcement came two days after a journalist for Economic Information Daily, a subsidiary of the state-run Xinhua news agency, Wang Wenzhi, accused Song of having a mistress, Helen Yang, who worked at investment bank UBS in Hong Kong and of using her to launder large amounts of money from allegedly corrupt deals.

Although Song is only a deputy minister-level official, he controls China Resources whose total assets amount to over US$99 billion, including sectors such as property, power, gas, medicines and supermarkets.

Wang first made an accusation against Song on July 17 last year, but the anti-corruption agency didn't take any action.

On April 15 Wang filed another accusation against Song, this time using the status of a Chinese citizen and adding that Song has a mistress.

Song denied Wang's accusation on April 16, vowing to take legal action against him. "These allegations are pure fabrication and vicious defamation," he said in the statement on his company's website.

In a dramatic turn of events, however, the anti-corruption agency confirmed that it was investigating Song, while the China Resources board declined to comment.

UBS's legal department is conducting an internal investigation into Yang, whose main clients are Chinese state-owned enterprises.

Initially China Resources was a trading company, and gradually expanded to other areas such as manufacturing and distribution of consumer goods, property, infrastructure, manufacturing and the distribution of medicine.

China Resources, which is a listed company in Hong Kong, is the largest shareholder of China Vanke, one of China's biggest property developers. Both its beer unit and supermarket division ranked the top in the mainland.

According to Fortunes global top 500, China Resources ranked 233rd in 2012 with revenues of US$43.4 billion. As of the end of 2011, the total assets of China Resources had reached HK$764.4 billion.