Yang Rong 仰融 is not your everyday Chinese businessman. We previously wrote about him on SupChina here. Some highlights:
- He made a fortune selling minivans in the early 2000s.
- His company, Brilliance Auto, got in trouble with the Liaoning Province government, then led by the now-disgraced Bo Xilai 薄熙来, which seized Brilliance’s assets and accused Yang of embezzlement.
- Yang left the country for California, from where he has continued to wield influence as the head of another automotive company, Hybrid Kinetic Group.
Hybrid Kinetic is now making big moves in China, with plans to “be in commercial production by 2020 and… make 1m electric cars a year in China” — even though just 507,000 electric vehicles were sold in the country last year, the Financial Times reports (paywall). The FT also notes that Yang himself appears to have regained favor with the Chinese authorities, as he reportedly “regularly travels between the U.S., Hong Kong and mainland China for work and has been in contact with Chinese auto regulatory bodies.”
The company has not yet acquired a manufacturing permit to mass produce electric vehicles in China. But with grand goals and a dynamic boss, this is a company — and a person — to watch.
—Lucas Niewenhuis
- On-demand car services
Volvo to enter on demand car services / The Information (paywall)
“Volvo, the Chinese-owned car brand, has been in talks to acquire the assets and intellectual property of Luxe, the recently suspended on-demand parking valet app, according to two people with knowledge of the pending deal.” - Startups
Chinese social fitness app Keep reaches 100 million users / TechNode - Facebook
Facebook’s secret Chinese app is a dud in China so far / Quartz
Read more on SupChina: Facebook tries to go to China, again - Film industry
China box office: ‘Wolf Warrior II’ nears $650M, enters top five all-time in a single territory / China Film Insider - Drones
How China’s cutting-edge drones are transforming the nation / SCMP - Pharma and health care
China’s Fosun, Shanghai Pharma say bid for stake in U.S. drugmaker Arbor / Reuters
China’s health service industry to reach 16 trillion yuan by 2030 / Xinhua - P2P lending
In peer-to-peer lending, size matters / Caixin
“As China caps loan size to rein in risk, big players get hit first and hardest.” - Ecommerce
JD.com losses widen in second quarter / Caixin
Behind the scenes of Tmall’s brand flagship stores and the Taobao Partner program / TechNode - Payments and banking
China fines Citibank, four others for breaching mortgage and credit card rules / SCMP - Macro trends
China industrial output, retail sales, fixed asset investment all miss expectations / CNBC
