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China’s HNA Co-Chairman Dies During France Trip  

Paris (July 04, 2018): Chinese conglomerate HNA Group Co-Chairman Wang Jian died during a business trip in France on July 3 in what local police said appeared to be an accidental fall from a wall while posing for a photograph.

Wang, 57, was regarded as the architect of an eye-popping $50-billion acquisition spree that saw HNA accumulate assets ranging from a stake in Deutsche Bank AG to high-profile overseas properties. Under pressure from Beijing, HNA has since sold off many of those assets to slash debt.He was in charge of HNA’s strategy and ran day-to-day operations, sources familiar with the matter have said, while his fellow chairman and co-founder Chen Feng was often the public face of the group.

His death complicates the troubled conglomerate’s efforts to restructure and pay off borrowings and could increase pressure on HNA to reveal more about its oft-criticized opaque ownership.Wang fell 15 meters off a wall in the village of Bonnieux, near Avignon, a picturesque area popular with tourists, lieutenant-colonel Hubert Meriaux of the Vaucluse gendarmerie force said.

 “He stood on the edge of a sharp drop to get his family to take a picture of him and fell,” he said. Wang held a 15 per cent stake in HNA. The group is controlled by a New York-based foundation and a China-based charity that together hold 52 per cent of HNA shares. Chen also holds a 15 per cent stake.

Shareholders have promised that in the event of leaving the company or dying they would pass their stakes to the New York charity fund, according to a document. It was not immediately clear how binding those promises were.

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