CX Daily: How a Fortune 500 Company Built a Commodity Colossus on a Shell Game

Debts /

Cover Story: How a Fortune 500 company built a commodity colossus on a shell game

Investors who poured billions of dollars into investment products backed by Cedar Holdings Group Co. Ltd. were betting on the commodity giant’s financial strength as a Fortune Global 500 company. But as Cedar repeatedly missed payment obligations, they realized that the multibillion dollar colossus might just be an illusion.

About 8,000 individual investors holding 20 billion yuan ($3.15 billion) of wealth management products (WMPs) backed by Cedar — including some sold overseas — are in limbo as the company’s finances worsen. Cedar also has 2 billion yuan of overdue payments on trust products, investors said.

Since April 2020, Cedar has delayed redemption of matured WMPs but still managed to pay interest. But starting in January this year, the company couldn’t even pay overdue interest, several investors told Caixin.

Covid-19 /

Analysis: Why Singapore could coexist with Covid, but not Hong Kong

Singapore, with a population and city size similar to those of Hong Kong, has been reporting record-high numbers of Covid-19 cases, even more than 10,000 cases per day several times. Singaporeans seem to have adapted to the “coexistence” model, and its health care system has not been heavily affected.

“The reason is that the Home Recovery Program for mild cases has mitigated the pressure on Singapore's health care system,” Alex Cook, associate professor at the NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, told Caixin, noting that this is one of the main differences between the epidemic control approach of Singapore and that of Hong Kong.

FINANCE & ECONOMY

Health workers at a new laboratory Saturday in Suzhou, which is able to handle 1 million nucleic acid samples a day. Photo: VCG

Services /

China moves to protect vulnerable services sector from excessive local Covid control measures

China issued policies to help the country’s services sector better cope with the pandemic fallout, including tax relief and fiscal compensation as well as prohibiting excessive disease control measures.

The measures are contained in a 10-page policy paper released jointly by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) together with 13 other central government agencies such as the Ministry of Finance and National Health Commission Friday.

The policies come at a time when China’s services sector, particularly medium and small businesses in catering, retail, tourism and entertainment industries, has been hit hard by some local governments’ excessive one-size-fits-all measures to contain the Covid-19 virus in scattered outbreaks across the country.

Metaverse /

Chinese regulators warn of metaverse scams

Chinese regulators have warned of the risks of investing in the metaverse, citing scams and illegal fundraising schemes that have multiplied amid fiery market speculation around the tech buzzword.

Some lawbreakers have been “absorbing funds” by making up phony metaverse projects, according to a notice released Friday by an interministerial committee consisting of more than a dozen government agencies led by the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission.

Corruption /

China’s anti-graft agency probes former telecom and bank exec

Li Guohua, a former general manager of China United Network Communications Group Co. Ltd. (China Unicom), one of the country’s three biggest state telecom carriers, has been put under investigation by the country’s top anti-graft agency.

Li, 61, is being investigated on suspicion of serious violation of law and Communist Party discipline, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said in a statement Friday. Announcements of such nature typically allude to graft.

Li retired from China Unicom in March 2020, after nearly 20 months on the job. Sources with knowledge of the matter told Caixin that Li is being investigated for suspected wrongdoing at Postal Savings Bank of China Co. Ltd. (PSBC) when he served as chairman of the state-owned bank.

Quick hits /

China vows to contain bond default risks, deepen reforms

BUSINESS & TECH

China has fully vaccinated 1.23 billion people, or 87% of the population.

Vaccines /

China to roll out mix-and-match Covid-19 boosters

China is preparing to allow mix-and-match Covid-19 booster vaccinations that use different technologies as studies show mixed shots provide better protection than using the same vaccines for all shots.

Provincial disease control staff are being trained on the administration of Covid-19 vaccine booster shots, including both mix-and-match vaccines and repeated inactivated-virus inoculations.

Recruiting /

‘Blood slave’ in Cambodia tricked by false job ad throws spotlight on recruitment platforms in China

The story of a Chinese man lured by a fake job ad, kidnapped and forced to work as a “blood slave” in Cambodia put the spotlight on the obligations of job recruitment platforms such as 58.com.

The victim, whose family name is Li, was forcibly taken to the Southeast Asian country after applying for the job, where he was illegally detained by an online gambling fraud gang who literally bled him for money, China’s embassy in Cambodia said in a statement (link in Chinese) last week.

Heavy trucks /

Battery swapping boosts appeal for new-energy heavy trucks

Almost every new-energy heavy truck sold in China last month had a swappable battery, in a sign Chinese fleet operators are embracing the technology to beat the traditional limits of electric vehicles and reduce their operating costs.

All but 20 of the 2,283 new-energy heavy vehicles sold in January were equipped with a power replenishing system capable of replacing the exhausted battery with a fully charged one in just a few minutes.

Quick hits /

Opinion: China’s Olympic legacy is about becoming a sporting superpower

Chinese developer Zhenro says funds insufficient to pay March debt

Editorial: How China can make its universities better

GALLERY

Gallery: Beijing Winter Olympics Close With Pageantry

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