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From the corporate governance files...
Geely is probably best known as the Chinese auto company that bought Volvo from Ford last year. It is also known as China's largest "private" automaker. I put the term "private" in quotation marks because, in China, the meaning of the word is not quite the same as in most developed countries.
As is generally well-known among China watchers, the government -- particularly local governments -- have influence on private businesses that goes beyond mere regulation. And the larger the "private" business, the greater the government's influence.
At a minimum, the local state is everyone's landlord. At the extreme, a local government can force private businesses to sell out to state owned businesses, as has been done with alarming frequency in the coal industry, or local officials can demand an ownership share.
On the positive side, not all governments necessarily seek to own or control private businesses, and many even provide help to private businesses in startup mode such as tax breaks, free or cheap land and utilities, access to bank loans, etc.
But the question that this kind of help often raises is, what does the government expect in return? Is it enough to be a successful business that employs people and pays its taxes on time, or do local officials expect more?
Because we always hear that Geely is a "private" business, I decided to try to find out exactly how "private" Geely is -- at least in terms of legal ownership. Geely is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, so its audited financial statements and accompanying notes are made available on the HKSE website. Geely's latest annual report (2009) is available here (pdf).
In an effort to determine who exactly owns Geely, I constructed the following partial org chart from information available in the annual report. The listed company is in the purple box. About 48 percent of the Geely Auto Holdings is held by public shareholders, and the remaining majority of shares are owned by a company named Proper Glory Holdings which is incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.
According to the annual report, Proper Glory is ultimately controlled by Geely's Chairman "Mr. Li Shufu and his associate," but for some reason it does not say who this "associate" is. (Here I am referring to the yellow box at the top of the diagram.)
Looking back over the years, this "associate" did not begin to be mentioned as an owner until 2008, but he, she or it seems to be pretty important. If you do the math, this anonymous "associate" could potentially control up to 35 percent of the listed company. And if "associate" owns as little as 75 percent of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Ltd, he, she or it would be the listed company's largest single shareholder with a 26 percent interest.
Furthermore, as you can see at the bottom of the org chart, Li Shufu and this mysterious "associate" also own 9% of the auto plants.
I contacted several friends who are even more knowledgeable than I about China's auto industry, and their assumption, like mine, is that Li Shufu controls the company. One suggested, however, that the "associate" may be Li's son or brother. Another speculated that it could even be a Communist Party member to whom Li is beholden for something.
I am not suggesting that there is anything illegal going on here, but it seems to me that Geely's auditor, the Hong Kong office of Grant Thornton (which has recently lost most of its employees to BDO) is not doing a thorough enough job of reporting by allowing a shareholder with the potential to control the company to remain completely anonymous.
If there is nothing to hide, why not reveal the name of the "associate"? At a minimum, why not reveal the respective ownership shares that Li Shufu and "associate" have in Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Ltd?
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UPDATE, January 28, 2011:
Thanks to one of my readers for bringing this to my attention.
Above I said that Li Shufu's unnamed "associate" could control the listed Geely company with 75% ownership of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Ltd. (ZGHGL). That's not entirely accurate. I was thinking more like an accountant than a lawyer. (And I am neither, though my work previously involved a lot of accounting).
I should have more accurately said that the "associate" could control Geely with only a majority ownership of ZGHGL. If the associate held 50% plus one share of ZGHGL, then he would effectively control Proper Glory, which, because it owns 51.3%, also controls the listed Geely Company.
Again, while my assumption is that Li Shufu is the controlling owner of Geely, until someone reveals how much of ZGHGL the associate owns, we cannot be entirely sure of that.
Subsequent to the above post, I have also received information from someone who knows the identity of the associate. This "associate" is apparently an influential Party member who helped Geely to get central government approval for the Volvo purchase. Unfortunately, I cannot reveal the source, but it is someone whom I trust, and who is in a position to know.
If that is indeed true, then, if I were a Geely shareholder, I would be even more interested to know how much influence and/or control the "associate" actually has.
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