On Wednesday, May 22nd, former President of Guizhou Bank, Xu An, was officially removed from office. Last October, the former Chairman of the bank, Li Zhiming, was also dismissed.
According to a report released on May 22nd by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China and the National Supervisory Commission, Xu An, the former Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee, Director, and President of Guizhou Bank Limited, is currently under investigation for serious violations of discipline and laws by the Discipline Inspection and Supervision Commission of Guizhou Province.
Xu An, born in 1963, had worked at Guizhou Bank for many years. He was appointed President of the bank in April 2018 and became an Executive Director in August of the same year.
Xu An had been in charge of Guizhou Bank for nearly six years. On the evening of March 7th this year, Guizhou Bank announced that due to “work arrangements,” Xu An would no longer serve as Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee. He personally applied to resign from his positions as an Executive Director of the bank, Chairman of the Board of Directors’ Compliance Management Committee, Chairman of the Strategic Development Committee, member of the ESG Management and Consumer Rights Protection Committee, and President.
It is worth noting that Liu Zhiming, the former Chairman of Guizhou Bank, was removed from office last October, almost three years after his resignation from the bank. Liu Zhiming joined Guizhou Bank in December 2017 as the Secretary of the Party Committee and became Chairman in April 2018. He resigned from Guizhou Bank in January 2021 due to “work arrangements made by the Guizhou provincial government.”
From the duration of their terms, it can be seen that Li Zhiming and Xu An had worked together for many years.
Public information shows that Guizhou Bank is a large state-owned enterprise under the administration of Guizhou Province, established on October 11th, 2012, with its registered and headquarters in the provincial capital of Guiyang. On December 30th, 2019, Guizhou Bank was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The largest shareholder of Guizhou Bank is the Guizhou Provincial Finance Department, holding a 20% stake, followed by Guizhou Maotai Group, holding 12%.
According to the annual report of Guizhou Bank, as of the end of 2023, the total loan amount was 331.95 billion yuan, with loans to the “leasing and commercial services industry” accounting for 117.8 billion yuan, over 35% of the total. Financial news sources mention that loans related to urban investment are mainly classified under this category.
Among the top ten clients listed in the “loan concentration” disclosure for 2023, the seventh-ranked client from the real estate industry had a loan of 1.96162 billion yuan marked as a “loss.” However, in the semi-annual report released in June 2023, loans to the top ten clients indicated as “normal.” The deterioration of Guizhou Bank’s real estate loans began in 2022, with the non-performing loan ratio rising from 0.83% of the previous year to 20.21%.
Reports indicate that a joint credit rating report on June 29, 2023, mentioned that in 2022, amid economic downturn, local government fiscal revenue decreased, leading to financial constraints, reduced debt repayment capacity, increased size and proportion of overdue loans at Guizhou Bank. Additionally, due to a sluggish real estate market, defaults on debts of real estate enterprises increased in 2022, resulting in loans related to the “Evergrande Group” being classified as non-performing, leading to a growth in the scale and proportion of non-performing loans.
Apart from encountering difficulties with the “Evergrande Group,” public information indicates that since 2023, Guizhou Bank has also been involved in legal disputes with other real estate companies, such as a bond trading dispute with the Sunac China Group.