China Everbright Group

History

China Everbright Group/Holdings was established in Hong Kong, British Empire in 1983, by three proxy person for the Government of China: Wang Guangying, Zhang Lansheng (Chinese: 張瀾生) and Ren Xiguang (Chinese: 任錫光), with Wang "owned" most of the shares until 1990, which was transferred to Qiu Qing (Chinese: 邱晴), the second chairman of the company. Wang was the chairman and one of the 5 executive directors along with Kong Dan and three others in 1985, which was ratified by the State Council of the People's Republic of China. The State Council ratified the establishment of Everbright by a State Council document numbered No.89[1983]. (Chinese: 国务院国发[1983]89号文, not published to the public).

The group now had a parent company incorporated in Beijing (as China Everbright Group, was known as Chinese: 中國光大(集團)總公司, incorporated in 1990 but could be traced back to Chinese: 光大实业公司, the name used in the document of the State Council) and a wholly owned subsidiary incorporated in Hong Kong (China Everbright Holdings Co., Ltd. Chinese: 中國光大集團有限公司 was known as Violight Industry Co., Ltd. Chinese: 紫光實業有限公司 from 1983 to 1984). Due to foreign exchange controls, the main overseas businesses were centered on the Hong Kong based subsidiary.

Everbright Group founded China Everbright Bank in 1992, the stake in the bank was diluted by the subscription of new shares by Central Huijin Investment in 2007, as well as Everbright Group injected part of the stake of the bank to Everbright Group's subsidiary: China Everbright Limited in 1997.

In 1993 China Everbright Group acquired 20% stake of Hong Kong based International Bank of Asia. (The stake was then injected to China Everbright Limited in 1997, which was sold in 2004).

Everbright Group also acquired several listed companies as reverse IPO to form China Everbright Limited (SEHK: 00165) in 1994 (renamed and restructured in 1997) and China Everbright International Limited (SEHK: 00257) in 1993.

Everbright Securities was founded in Shanghai in 1996.

In 1998, instead of reporting to the State Council directly, Everbright Group was assigned to the People's Bank of China as the intermediate supervising entity. In 2000, China Securities Regulatory Commission and China Insurance Regulatory Commission were added as the supervisors for the financial businesses, with the Ministry of Finance excising the shareholders rights. State Economic and Trade Commission was also added as the regulator if the business was in the scope of the commission. Lastly, the Committee of Communist Party of China inside the company (the de facto highest board of the company) would be reporting to another supervising minister of the Central Committee of the party. Zhu Xiaohua, the former chairman of the group who was arrested in 1999, was jailed in 2002.

In 2007 the group was split into financial and non-financial company, the latter was led by China Everbright Industrial (Group) Co., Ltd. (Chinese: 中国光大实业(集团)有限责任公司), which was owned by Central Huijin from 2007 to 2014 (merged back to China Everbright Group).

In 2014, Central Huijin became a major shareholder of Everbright Group by injecting 90 billion shares of Everbright Bank and 100% stake of Everbright Industrial back into Everbright Group. The company also re-incorporated as a joint-stock company with limited liabilities (as Chinese: 中國光大集團股份公司).

Subsidiaries and equity investments

The company via its wholly owned subsidiary China Everbright Holdings (Chinese: 中國光大集團有限公司), owned 49.74% stake of China Everbright Limited and 0.18% stake of China Everbright Bank. China Everbright Group also owned 29.68% stake of Everbright Securities, 23.96% stake of China Everbright Bank directly. China Everbright Group also owned 41.39% stake in Everbright International and 4.98% stake in Shenwan Hongyuan Group. China Everbright Bank was also owned by Central Huijin Investment, making Everbright Group and Everbright Bank were sister companies.

P2P Lending Fraud

Zhejiang Everbright development Corp. (Chinese: 浙江光大发展总公司), a state-owned enterprise affiliated with China Everbright Group, has been alleged to be part of a P2P Lending fraud by Junxiang Finance (Chinese: 君享金融）, a Chinese P2P Lending platform formed in 2016. The actual controller of the platform was arrested early 2017 because of fraud after thousands of customers have invested 137 million Chinese yuan in Junxiang Finance. After the arrestment, China Everbright Group made an announcement on its official website saying that: "they have not authorized or agreed Zhejiang Everbright development Corp to participate in any internet finance related business".