A Chinese Communist Party internal investigation of alleged irregularities in ship finance has claimed more prominent shipping names.
Multiple sources have told TradeWinds that ship financier Yang Changkun, the former head of shipping at ICBC Financial Leasing who also goes by CK Yang, and Norwegian shipowner David Wu of Landmark Capital were taken away on or about 8 July by officials of the Beijing branch of the Party’s Central Commission on Discipline Inspection (CCDI).
Calls to Yang’s and Wu’s Chinese cell phone numbers went unanswered early Friday evening Beijing time.
A person close to Wu confirmed to TradeWinds that he has been detained but had no comment on the record.
Yang’s current colleague Xu Chun, chairman of Shenzhen-based Equator Fund Management, told TradeWinds he was informed on 10 July by a family member of Yang that Yang had been detained in Beijing and would be unable to work for some time. Xu, who also goes by Vincent Xu, underscored that Equator’s operations are not affected in any way and that the new company could not be connected to the events under investigation as it was only formally established in February of this year.
Besides Yang and Wu, sources also mentioned that Yang’s former ICBC subordinate Lv Zhuo, who is also known in English as Luke Lyu, and Yang’s former boss Ji Fuxing are detained. TradeWinds was unable to contact Lv or Ji.
Zero allegations
The four new CCDI detentions follow a series of four earlier ones in the ship finance industry. No official allegations have emerged in any of the detentions.
In January, TradeWinds reported that Li Li of the Export-Import Bank of China (CExim) had been taken away. So too was Wang Wei, also known in English as Eric Wang, of financial advisor Smarine Advisors, who was previously her employee at CExim.
Earlier this month, Li and Wang were followed by the heads of shipping at two of China’s top ship financiers, Fang Xiuzhi of Bank of Communications Leasing and Fan Qiyong of Minsheng Financial Leasing.
The first four detentions were reportedly carried out by the Yunnan province branch of the CCDI, and the latest four by the Beijing CCDI. Chinese ship finance sources believe this means they involve separate cases.
A special complication is the involvement of foreign citizens in the probe. At least two — Fan and Wu — of the eight detained are holders of foreign or non-mainland passports.
One source told TradeWinds that because Minsheng’s Fan holds a Hong Kong passport, he has been released from custody in Yunnan but is not free to leave the province until investigations are finished.
Wu is a Norwegian citizen but a press spokesperson for the Norwegian foreign ministry in Oslo told TradeWinds she was unaware of the detention or of consular efforts to assist Wu.
TradeWinds was unable to reach CCDI officials for comment. Historically, the internal party enforcement arm announces its actions in only a few politically significant cases. It is not believed to have made any official announcement of this year’s detentions in ship finance.
Prominent names
In his former position as head of shipping and offshore at Beijing-based ICBC, Yang succeeded his former boss Paul Chang and presided over a huge expansion of leasing finance. He left the position and later the company, following the downturn in the offshore industry and a reorganisation of the former shipping and offshore department, after ICBC found itself heavily exposed to clients including Petrobras.
TradeWinds reported last year that Yang had reappeared in a new role as president and partner of Equator, a shipping investment fund set up by the Shenzhen municipal government, with a goal of investing some $1.5bn in shipping projects to promote Beijing’s strategic goal of turning the entire Pearl River Delta into a single giant maritime-based economy stretching from Guangzhou to Hong Kong.
Wu, who was an Oslo medical doctor before his shipping career, is the principal of financier and LNG shipowner Landmark Capital. He is also chairman of LNT Marine, the company behind the LNT A-Box and the LNG carrier to use it, the 46,400-cbm Jia Xing (ex-Saga Dawn, built 2019).
After holding executive positions within shipowning, including serving as country manager in China for IM Skaugen, Wu started out on his own, setting up Landmark Capital initially as a financial intermediary for shipping and offshore companies. Many of the deals it arranged were on behalf of foreign shipowners seeking ICBC lease finance during Yang’s period there.
