(Bloomberg) — Chinese brokerage Zheshang Securities Co. said it received a resignation letter from its President Wang Qingshan, reported by local media as missing since late March.
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Wang is stepping down from all positions at the company for unspecified “personal reasons,” it said in a stock exchange filing Friday. Operations remain normal, it added.
Speculation has surrounded Wang and the brokerage since March 31, when he “fell out of contact,” Caixin reported. Wang was “called out of a meeting” held by Zheshang’s largest shareholder that day and has since remained unreachable, an unidentified person familiar with the matter told Caixin.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is accelerating a corruption crackdown on the sprawling financial sector. Authorities in April warned top banking executives in a private meeting that the crackdown on the $60 trillion industry is far from over. At least 20 financial executives had been probed or penalized since late February.
China Warns Top Bankers of Deepening Crackdown on Corruption
Wang, 42, was the only one among Zheshang’s nine board members absent from a meeting Friday, according to the company. A call by Bloomberg News to Zheshang went unanswered outside of business hours.
Chinese authorities have recently “taken away” several close associates of Wang, Caixin reported.
He is also linked to an official who is currently under investigation by the ruling Communist Party’s top anti-graft agency, Caixin said. More than a decade ago, when he was with the China Securities Regulatory Commission, Wang became secretary to Zhu Congjiu, then an assistant to the chairman. In 2012, Zhu was appointed a deputy governor of Zhejiang, where Zheshang is based.
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