The Chinese insurer that owns New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel yesterday said its chairman was unable to perform his duties following a report he was detained by regulators amid accusations of possible financial misconduct.
Anbang Insurance Group Ltd (安邦保險集團) chairman Wu Xiaohui (吳小暉) was “temporarily unable to perform his duties due to personal reasons,” a one-sentence statement on the company’s Web site said.
It said Wu authorized other executives to do his work and gave no other details.
Photo: Reuters
On Monday, influential financial magazine Caijing reported that Wu, who founded Anbang in 2004 and built it into one of China’s biggest insurers, was detained last week by insurance regulators.
Citing unidentified sources, it said authorities told the company about the detention, but gave no reason.
Anbang spokespeople did not respond to telephone calls or e-mails.
The China Insurance Regulatory Commission did not respond to questions sent by fax.
Anbang has been under scrutiny since a multibillion-dollar global string of asset purchases, including buying the Waldorf for US$2 billion, raised questions about how it was paying for its buying spree.
The privately held company said the money was raised from shareholders.
It denied accusations in April by another financial magazine, Caixin, that Anbang improperly used payments from policyholders to increase its capital base.
More recently, the company has suffered a series of setbacks, including failing to complete several foreign takeovers such as the proposed purchase of US-based Fidelity & Guaranty Life Insurance Co for US$1.6 billion.
Last month, Anbang was ordered to stop selling two financial products that regulators said violated industry rules.
Other Chinese insurers have also been investigated following complaints of reckless speculation on stocks and real estate.
The chairman of the Chinese insurance regulator is under investigation by the national anti-corruption agency.
Regulators have declared reduction of financial risks in the Chinese economy a priority this year.
Rising Chinese debt levels have prompted concern about the stability of the nation’s financial system.
Anbang has a reputation for unusually aggressive expansion in a Chinese insurance industry dominated by state-owned companies.
Earlier, the company discussed possibly investing in a Manhattan skyscraper owned by the family of Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser. Those talks ended in March without a deal.
Anbang said it raised 50 billion yuan (US$7.36 billion at the current exchange rate) from investors in 2014 to pay for its buying spree.
That increased its registered capital fivefold to 62 billion yuan, the biggest among Chinese insurance companies.
Caixin’s April report said at least 30 billion yuan of that money was actually payments from policyholders.
The magazine said the money was then channeled back into the company through a complex ownership structure.
Anbang has more than 30,000 employees serving 35 million clients, and has interests in life insurance, banking, asset management, leasing and brokerage services.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to