Recent days, the controlling shareholder of the Gansu listed companies Shengda Resources and Huangtai Liquor Industry, Zhao Mantang, has been investigated by the China Securities Regulatory Commission for suspected violations of “illegal disclosure of information”. Earlier in March this year, Zhao Mantang and his family ranked on a global rich list of a certain institution with a wealth of 12.5 billion yuan.
On June 15, the leading enterprise in Baiyin, Shengda Resources, announced that the company and its actual controller Zhao Mantang received a notice from the CSRC on the same day, initiating an investigation for suspected illegal information disclosure. Subsequently, on the evening of June 16, Huangtai Liquor Industry also announced that the company’s controlling shareholder Zhao Mantang was under investigation by the CSRC for suspected illegal information disclosure.
Both companies did not disclose the reasons for Zhao Mantang’s investigation, but in Shengda Resources’ self-examination explanation for the investigation, it was mentioned that the Shengda Group had accumulated an occupation of the company’s funds totaling 792 million yuan two years ago. However, as of December 11 last year, the amount had been fully recovered, with an interest of over 3.6 million yuan collected at an annualized rate of 3.85%.
Following the announcement of the investigation, the stocks of the two companies controlled by Zhao Mantang plummeted.
On June 16, Shengda Resources’ stock price hit the limit down, closing at 26.52 yuan per share by June 17, a decrease of 4.29%. Huangtai Liquor Industry dropped 2.07% on the 16th and a further 5.42% on the 17th. Huangtai Liquor Industry’s decline this year has exceeded 50%, while Shengda Resources’ cumulative decline this year has reached around 65%, wiping out a market value of over 30 billion yuan. The total number of shareholders in both companies exceeds 110,000 households, suffering heavy losses as the investigation proceeds and stock prices continue to fall.
Zhao Mantang, the head of Shengda Resources, is known as the “Silver King of Gansu”. After taking over Huangtai Liquor Industry in 2019, he successfully turned around this company on the brink of delisting. Zhao Mantang also holds nearly 5% of Lanzhou Bank’s shares and has extensive investments in multiple sectors such as culture tourism, health care, and real estate. In March this year, the Hurun Research Institute released the “2026 Hurun Global Rich List”, ranking the Zhao Mantang family at 2,559th with a wealth of 12.5 billion yuan.
However, it was found by the First Financial that many of Zhao Mantang and the Shengda Group’s holdings in listed companies have been pledged. The cumulative pledge ratio of Shengda Resources’ shares has exceeded 80%.
The Shengda Group’s holdings in Huangtai Liquor Industry and Lanzhou Bank have also been partially pledged. As of the end of March this year, the Group held a total of 99.2 million shares of Lanzhou Bank in pledge status. In addition, 8.9 million shares of Huangtai Liquor Industry were also pledged.
Furthermore, the equity of the Shengda Group itself has been pledged multiple times. Third-party information shows that the group currently has four equity pledge records. On a single day on December 25, 2024, the group pledged 350 million shares and 300 million shares respectively to a local financing guaranty company.
However, as of now, there have been no publicly available records of lawsuits or defaults related to debts by the Shengda Group.
According to the disclosure by Shengda Resources on June 12, the total amount of various loans currently held by Shengda Group is around 4.72 billion yuan, with a debt repayment amount of 1.24 billion yuan within the next six months. In the previous year, the group’s operating income was 11.4 billion yuan, net profit 430 million yuan, operational net cash flow 2.54 billion yuan, and the asset-liability ratio at the end of the year was 45.38%.