事件: 溫氏傢族與平安崛起 Lobbying, a Windfall and a Leader’s Family
| 事件經過:
中國深圳——亞洲金融危機過後，一傢保險公司陷入財務睏境，其負責人勸說中國領導人放鬆要求拆分該公司的規定。
1999年秋，官員們被告知，平安保險(Ping An Insurance)的生存危在旦夕。時任副總理的溫傢寶和中國央行行長都直接收到了相關請求。這兩名位高權重的官員都對平安所在行業有監管權。
《紐約時報》查閱了平安董事長馬明哲寫給溫傢寶的一封信。馬明哲在信中請求道，“懇請溫副總理從更高的層次予以領導和協調。”
後來平安沒被拆分。
事實證明，努力遊說取得的成果是非常巨大的。
平安後來成了中國最大的金融服務公司之一，以500億美元（約合3113億元人民幣）的身價領先於美國國際集團(AIG)、大都會人壽(MetLife)和保誠集團(Prudential)。而在幕後，溫傢寶的親屬得到了平安的股份。一旦平安實力回彈，這些股份將會價值幾十億美元。
本報上月報道，在溫傢寶自2003年出任總理後的任期內，他的親屬變得非常富有，獲得了旅遊度假村、銀行、珠寶公司、電信企業以及其他企業的股份。
《紐約時報》的調查發現，截至目前為止，他們財富的最大來源是平安的股份。在平安取得豁免不受大型金融企業應進行拆分這項規定的影響約八個月後，他們買進了平安的股份。
監管記錄和公司記錄顯示，遠在大多數投資者能購買平安的股票之前，一傢名為泰鴻(Taihong)的公司便通過早前在平安持有股份的國有企業獲得了平安的大宗股權。不久後，泰鴻便被溫傢寶的親屬控製了。不管怎麽看，該公司在這筆交易中獲利頗豐。據采訪和公開文件顯示，泰鴻2002年12月購買平安股份時的價格是另一傢大型投資者英國銀行匯豐控股(HSBC Holdings)兩個月前的購買價格的四分之一。
截至2004年6月，即便在平安於香港證券交易所(Hong Kong Stock Exchange)上市之前，溫傢寶親屬所持股份的價值已是四倍於從前。截至2007年，泰鴻最初那6500萬美元的投資已價值37億美元。
公司記錄顯示，溫傢寶的親屬通過那筆投資獲得的利益極有可能在2007年年底達到22億美元的峰值。2007年是泰鴻作為股東的記錄公開可查的最後一年。因為泰鴻不再出現在平安的公開文件中，目前尚不清楚溫傢寶的親屬是否繼續持有平安的股份。
同樣無法獲知的是，溫傢寶和時任央行行長戴相竜是否親自介入，批復了平安不要拆分該公司的申請，以及溫傢寶對自己親屬持有的股份是否知曉。
但平安的內部文件、政府文件以及同銀行傢和平安前高管的采訪表明，在參加了相關會議的監管部門中，副總理辦公室和央行都名列其中，且都有權批準不拆分平安。
文件顯示，衹有兩傢大型國有金融機構得到了類似的批準，免於被拆分，而三傢大型國有保險公司都被迫進行了拆分。中國的許多大型銀行都按照拆分要求，出售了在其他機構的資産。對大型金融機構進行拆分的規定是金融危機後出於對金融體係穩定性的擔憂而實行的。
平安嚮《紐約時報》發了一份聲明，稱公司嚴格遵守法律法規，不過並不知曉股東背後的所有機構的背景。平安還表示：“股東之間的任何股權轉讓是股東的正當權利。”
中國外交部沒有回覆請其為本文置評的電話。早些時候，外交部的一名發言人嚴厲批評了本報對溫傢寶傢屬的財務狀況所做的調查，稱“有關媒體的報道抹黑中國，別有用心”。
本報上月報道了總理傢族的財富後，代表溫傢寶傢族的律師稱本報文章中有未指明的錯誤且溫氏傢族保留采取法律措施的權利。
此外，中國政府屏蔽了中國大陸對《紐約時報》中英文網站的訪問，稱采取該行動“符合法律和法規”。目前，對本報中英文網站的屏蔽仍在繼續。
本報無法和溫傢寶或戴相竜取得聯繫以求置評。預計溫傢寶將於明年3月退休。而戴相竜現在是全國社會保障基金理事會理事長。
參與了平安2004年香港上市，及其後來2007年上海上市的中外銀行傢和律師稱，他們當時並不知道溫傢寶的親屬獲得了該公司的大量股份。
摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)和高盛(Goldman Sachs)曾持有大量的平安股份，並在平安於香港首次公開募股時，作為主承銷商。兩傢公司的高管也表示，從未被告知溫傢人的持股情況。在平安的敦促下，這兩傢投資銀行也在2000年嚮溫傢寶及其他監管者提出請求，不要按照規定拆分平安。2005年，兩傢投行的私募股權融資部門把他們持有的平安股份以一起賣給匯豐銀行。出售價約為10億美元，比他們最初投資上漲了14倍。
《紐約時報》查閱的幾千頁公開公司文件顯示，溫傢寶的親屬並未直接以他們自己的名義持有平安股份，而是用一層又一層隱蔽的合夥人關係掩蓋了他們的持股狀況。
在上個月的一次訪談中，溫傢的一位富商朋友段偉紅稱，其實是她持有那部分平安股份，而溫傢寶親屬出現在持股記錄上，衹是一個意外。這個過程包括藉用他們的身份證件，並取得他們的簽名。
對於披露與上市公司運營直接相關的基本公司信息，中國大陸和香港地區都有詳細的法規。這些信息包括大股東的身份，以及持有大量股份的公司是否為關聯方等等。但是法律專傢稱，這些法規的執行力度一般都很弱，這點在大陸地區尤甚。他們說，也有一種名義股東的習慣做法，亦即由某人代表另外一個人持股。在這種情況下，甚至最有經驗的律師和會計師都無法一窺究竟。
《紐約時報》並未發現有跡象顯示，這方面的法規或任何其他法律被違反，也未找到任何證據證明溫傢寶以本人名義持有平安股份。
在研究過《紐約時報》提出的問題後，香港證券及期貨事務監察委員會(Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong)及香港證券交易所拒絶發表評論。北京的中國證券監督管理委員會則並未回應質詢。
平安現在最大的股東、持有15.5%平安股份的匯豐銀行，也拒絶發表評論。匯豐銀行上周宣佈，作為其廣泛籌資活動的一部分，正在考慮出售自己持有的平安股份。
如今，平安是一個成功的大集團，去年的營收為400億美元，在中國有約50萬名保險銷售員。它是中國唯一的完全一體化的金融機構，擁有中國第二大的保險公司、一傢信托公司和一傢證券公司。
2010年末，平安進一步增強力量，宣佈了一個40億美元的交易，並從此控製了中國中型商業銀行之一，深圳發展銀行。現在，平安正在深圳修建一個新的公司總部，一棟115層的壯觀辦公樓。該大樓由紐約建築公司KPF建築設計所(Kohn Pedersen Fox)所設計。
差點被拆分
高中畢業生出身的平安董事長、首席執行官馬明哲，最初是袁庚的助手。袁庚是中國最早的一些經濟改革中的先驅者，也是平安保險的早期領導者。
袁庚欣賞馬明哲的聰明才幹，因而讓他負責一個由國傢管理的工業園的人事工作，並最終讓他負責新成立的平安保險公司。平安保險在新興海濱城市深圳生根發芽。
馬明哲的時機很好。那時中國剛剛開始重構其國傢主導的經濟體係。政府開始打破共産黨幹部在養老金、社保和住房保障上的鐵飯碗。
儘管平安創立之初是國企，卻是首批實驗西方管理模式的中國保險公司之一，包括聘用保險業務精算師，開展後臺運營工作，及引入外國股東。
1988年，平安成立。馬明哲負責協助管理這傢小公司。幾年後，他為公司尋覓美國的知名股東。
1994年，摩根士丹利和高盛的私募股權融資部門各自出資約3500萬美金，購買了7.5%的平安股份。在當時，這是一傢中國金融機構收到的最大一筆外商投資。
平安最初的成功大多歸功於馬明哲。馬明哲是個充滿衝勁的高管，因其管理技巧、政治技巧及冒險精神而受到推崇。
“他具備一個偉大企業傢的所有特質，”曾在20世紀90年代參與管理平安上海分公司的嚴峰稱，“他學習能力很強，知道怎麽適應新形勢，而且做事很有决心。為了實現目標不惜一切代價。”
但1997年爆發的亞洲金融危機波及到中國後，中國經濟在20世紀90年代末走軟，該公司的增長動力遇到了問題。
臃腫的國有企業開始崩潰，到了1998年，中國一些最大的國有銀行幾近破産。
平安辛苦得來的財富也開始不斷蒸發。和中國大多數大型保險公司一樣，平安是利用可以保證大筆收益的長期投資産品來贏取新客戶，這些收益是利用銀行在通脹時期為存款提供的高額利率來獲得的。20世紀90年代中期，銀行利率暴跌，該公司也損失慘重。
1999年，平安的高管開始承認，該公司處於破産邊緣。作為一傢聯合控股的股份公司，平安擁有很多大型機構投資者，其中大部分都是國有企業。但很多這些公司都拒絶通過購買更多股份，為平安提供需要的資本金來進行救助。
平安一名前高管在要求匿名的前提下透露，“當時大傢都不確定平安能不能繼續下去，以後會怎麽樣。”
此外，來自政府的壓力也在不斷增大。因為擔心金融體係存在的係統性風險，北京的監管機關加大執法力度，要求金融機構限製經營活動的範圍。
銀行被告知要出售證券公司或信托公司的股份；保險公司則必須在人壽保險和財産保險之間做選擇，而不再同時經營兩者。
1998年中國新的保險監管機構成立，之後它開始施壓，讓平安拆分其信托和證券業務，並將人壽和財産保險部門分成獨立的公司。
1999年11月，時任中國保險監督管理委員會主席的馬永偉在一次新聞發佈會上稱，該機構已經做好計劃，要對平安及其他保險公司進行拆分。
“分業經營方案已經提交國務院審批，”馬永偉對媒體稱，他還表示將“深化保險係統的改革”。
監管機構讓步
在公司即將拆分之際，馬明哲（英文名Peter Ma）開始給北京的領導人寫信，嚮助手口述備忘錄提醒自己要為高層官員“購買高爾夫球桿”，還列出詳細的圖表，規定平安每一位高管應該擔起的遊說責任，上述記錄的副本顯示。這些副本已經經過了前平安高管的核實。
馬明哲將自己的精力鎖定在中國政府最高的行政機構國務院上，國務院由38名成員組成，高級領導人包括總理朱鎔基和副總理溫傢寶。此外，平安還同時嚮有監管保險業責任的中國央行行長戴相竜尋求幫助。
溫傢寶地位獨特。他曾在權力巨大的中央金融工委任書記，中央金融工委成立於1998年，負責監督中國的銀行業、證券和保險監管機構，以及中國的大型金融機構。
平安的會議記錄以及對出席者的采訪顯示，馬明哲和這些監管者見了面，稱自己的公司臨近破産，希望他們能夠批準該公司在香港發行股票，從而改善該公司的資産負債表。
“目前，平安的壽險虧損，産險和信托微有盈利，”馬明哲在1999年9月29日寫給溫傢寶的信中說道。平安兩名前任高管證實了這封信的內容。
在不進行徹底拆分的情況下，馬明哲提出了一條折衷之道。他在徵求了其他投資者的意見之後，提議成立一傢控股公司，實際上分開人壽保險和財産保險業務，但同時又將這兩個部門，以及證券和信托部門，置於同一傢公司旗下。
他說，這個公司將重組為平安集團，《紐約時報》查看過的平安文件顯示。之後，他就開始為自己的提議尋找支持者。
2000年1月，在馬明哲的支持下，摩根士丹利和高盛的高管們聯名給溫傢寶寫信稱，拆分將“違反中國鼓勵並保護外國投資的政策”，《紐約時報》查閱的該信函的副本顯示。這封信的真實性已經由這兩傢投資銀行的前任高管證實。
上述美國投資銀行警告說，“作為美國上市公司，我們可能需要披露與投資平安相關的損失。這對於嚮外界展示中國改革開放政策的形象，並沒有幫助。”
《紐約時報》查閱到的公司文件顯示，這封信發出之前，平安高管以及兩傢美國投資銀行已經進行了數月的積極遊說，勸說北京的其他高層官員，包括中央銀行和保險監管部門，讓平安保持完整。
早在1999年，平安高管也已經開始與溫傢寶的傢人進行接觸。
前平安員工鬍坤曾在1997年至2000年之間擔任馬明哲的助理。鬍坤回顧了馬明哲與溫傢寶的妻子張蓓莉1999年的一次會面。
鬍坤表示，他沒有被告知會面時發生了什麽，但他記得馬明哲的反應。鬍坤說，“因為那次會面，馬董事長很激動。”鬍坤現在居住在美國，他聲稱，平安欠自己5.2萬股股票，並曾因此與平安産生了糾紛。
《紐約時報》查閱的公司記錄顯示，1999年6月17日下午，馬明哲與溫傢寶的妻子，以及時任平安駐北京代表處主任的李春彥會面，隨後還共進晚餐。
席間談話的內容不為外界所知，但雙方的關係似乎開始蓬勃發展。大約在同一時期，由張蓓莉的親戚部分控製的鑽石公司，開始在平安位於北京的辦公大樓占據辦公空間，該鑽石公司嚮監管部門提交的文件顯示。幾位平安前高管在接受采訪時透露，之後，溫傢寶之子溫雲鬆與人共同建立的創業企業，從平安贏得了利潤豐厚的科技合同。
現年56歲的馬明哲仍然控製着平安集團，他拒絶對本文發表評論。鬍坤的回憶，及《紐約時報》查閱的相關文件中關於平安的遊說努力，以及與溫傢寶親屬會面的情節，通過對四名曾在同一段時間，在該公司深圳總部與馬明哲和鬍坤共事的高管進行采訪得到了印證。
此外，當時負責北京代表處的李春彥在接受電話采訪時也確認，在那段時間，他曾帶張蓓莉與平安董事長馬明哲會面。
但文件和采訪並沒有揭示，幾次會面，是否對政府監管部門放棄拆分平安的决定産生了影響。不過在2002年4月，中國的最高監管部門作出了决定。經過國務院及保險監管部門的批準，平安開始了將自己轉變為一傢金融集團的過程。
該公司不僅獲準保留財産保險和人壽保險的牌照，還獲準保留經營證券公司和信托公司的牌照。平安還獲準取得了一張銀行牌照。
分析人士稱，在中國受到嚴格管製的市場上，這些牌照價值連城。
瑞銀(UBS)長期關註保險行業的駐香港分析師梁智勤(Bob Leung)說，“享受到了挖掘金礦一般的高回報的人少之又少，他們就是其中之一。”
2002年底，平安不僅安然渡過了下滑趨勢，還呈現了光明的前景。公司的重組促進了收入和利潤的增長。當年10月，全世界最大的銀行之一匯豐銀行同意支付6億美元，從平安購買10%的股份。僅僅一年多以後，監管部門就批準該公司在香港交易所上市銷售股票。
在平安籌備赴香港上市時，一群與包括溫傢寶在內的北京高層官員有緊密聯繫的投資者，正在靜悄悄地大量囤積平安股份。
買進平安
平安披露的信息顯示，2002年12月26日，來自總理故鄉的溫傢好友段偉紅經營的一傢公司，通過一傢名為泰鴻的企業購入平安股份。記錄顯示，之後不久，溫傢寶的親戚，及其妻子的同事控製了這個投資工具。
根據平安在香港上市前提供的文件，泰鴻先是從全球運輸巨頭中國遠洋運輸（集團）總公司（簡稱為“中遠”）手中購買了7770萬股平安股份，後來又從中遠的大連分支機構購入220萬股。股份一拆二之後，泰鴻擁有的股份數量翻番。因此，根據公開披露的文件，2004年6月，即平安在香港上市前夕，泰鴻持有1.598億股平安股份，約占總股份的3.2%。
在一次采訪中，段偉紅稱，為了購買這些股份，她每股花費了約40美分（按照當前的匯率），共計6500萬美元。
分析人士稱，這一價格似乎享受了非同尋常的大折扣，因為根據公開披露的文件，在這之前的兩個月，匯豐購買了平安10%的股份，每股約1.6美元。
中遠沒有回覆置評請求。
對泰鴻而言，這筆買賣大獲成功。2007年，平安股價達到峰值，這1.59億股的估值為37億美元。不過，根據公開披露的文件，泰鴻已於2007年前大幅降低了持股額。
根據公司和監管文件，儘管泰鴻是名義上的股東，但是平安這比交易的受益人隱藏在溫傢寶的親屬控製的十幾個投資工具之後，包括他的一個弟媳、他妻子張蓓莉的兩名兄弟，以及她的數個長期同事和生意夥伴。所有這些人都與段偉紅一起，列為泰鴻的持有人。
根據公開文件，到2007年，溫傢寶總理現年91歲的母親，通過與泰鴻相關的兩傢投資公司，持有價值1.2億美元的平安股票。
段偉紅稱，她從2000年開始認識溫傢寶的傢人，但這些平安股份都是為她個人的賬戶購買的。她說，溫傢寶的親屬之所以出現在泰鴻的持股記錄裏，僅僅是因為她的公司藉用了他人由政府頒發的身份證，以便嚮公衆掩蓋她自己持有的平安股份。她稱，總理親屬的身份證是錯誤藉用的。
段偉紅說，“最後的收益，100%都歸我所有。”
餘波
2001年，中國頒布了新的法規，限製共産黨員及其家庭成員進行股票交易。
比方說，法規禁止負責國有企業的共産黨官員利用親屬來買賣上市國有企業的股票。這些親屬包括父母、子女，甚至還包括子女配偶的親屬。
《紐約時報》沒有發現溫傢寶與家庭成員分享內幕信息的跡象。
但是，《紐約時報》咨詢的分析人士稱，關於這些親屬持有的股份，有很多有待解答的問題，比如，誰可能知曉這些親屬購買了股票，以及是否有人應當承擔披露這些信息的法律義務。
摩根士丹利和高盛的高管稱，他們既不知道這些股份買賣活動，也沒有參與到交易中。
這兩傢公司還稱，典型的首次公開發行(IPO)程序中，不太可能發現隱藏在多重投資工具背後、采用陌生姓名的股東的真正身份。
根據香港和中國內地的監管法規，公開上市的公司及幫助其承銷股票的專業服務夥伴，有法律義務披露持股比例超過5%的股東的身份。《紐約時報》發現，即便是在持股最多的時候，溫傢寶傢人的投資工具泰鴻所持有的股份比例也從未超過3.2%。
另一個有待解答的問題是，泰鴻如何能夠以似乎極其優惠的價格購買平安的股份。到2002年底，隨着匯豐的一大筆投資，平安的IPO前景已經極度看好。
法律專傢稱，一些問題的答案可能在於，在平安2004年上市之前，誰作為中間人促成了這些親屬購買該公司的股份，以及這些撮合交易的人是否試圖從監管機構得到好處。
紐約大學法學院(New York University Law School)教授、中國司法係統專傢孔傑榮(Jerome A. Cohen)說，“關鍵問題是，為什麽選中了這些人，以及他們獲得這些股份的條件是什麽？很顯然，每個人都想在一樁熱門IPO進行之前參與其中。”
(DAVID BARBOZA)
SHENZHEN, China — The head of a financially troubled insurer was pushing Chinese officials to relax rules that required breaking up the company in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis.
The survival of Ping An Insurance was at stake, officials were told in the fall of 1999. Direct appeals were made to the vice premier at the time, Wen Jiabao, as well as the then-head of China’s central bank — two powerful officials with oversight of the industry.
“I humbly request that the vice premier lead and coordinate the matter from a higher level,” Ma Mingzhe, chairman of Ping An, implored in a letter to Mr. Wen that was reviewed by The New York Times.
Ping An was not broken up.
The successful outcome of the lobbying effort would prove monumental.
Ping An went on to become one of China’s largest financial services companies, a $50 billion powerhouse now worth more than A.I.G., MetLife or Prudential. And behind the scenes, shares in Ping An that would be worth billions of dollars once the company rebounded were acquired by relatives of Mr. Wen.
The Times reported last month that the relatives of Mr. Wen, who became prime minister in 2003, had grown extraordinarily wealthy during his leadership, acquiring stakes in tourist resorts, banks, jewelers, telecommunications companies and other business ventures.
The greatest source of wealth, by far, The Times investigation has found, came from the shares in Ping An bought about eight months after the insurer was granted a waiver to the requirement that big financial companies be broken up.
Long before most investors could buy Ping An stock, Taihong, a company that would soon be controlled by Mr. Wen’s relatives, acquired a large stake in Ping An from state-owned entities that held shares in the insurer, regulatory and corporate records show. And by all appearances, Taihong got a sweet deal. The shares were bought in December 2002 for one-quarter of the price that another big investor — the British bank HSBC Holdings — paid for its shares just two months earlier, according to interviews and public filings.
By June 2004, the shares held by the Wen relatives had already quadrupled in value, even before the company was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. And by 2007, the initial $65 million investment made by Taihong would be worth $3.7 billion.
Corporate records show that the relatives’ stake of that investment most likely peaked at $2.2 billion in late 2007, the last year in which Taihong’s shareholder records were publicly available. Because the company is no longer listed in Ping An’s public filings, it is unclear if the relatives continue to hold shares.
It is also not known whether Mr. Wen or the central bank chief at the time, Dai Xianglong, personally intervened on behalf of Ping An’s request for a waiver, or if Mr. Wen was even aware of the stakes held by his relatives.
But internal Ping An documents, government filings and interviews with bankers and former senior executives at Ping An indicate that both the vice premier’s office and the central bank were among the regulators involved in the Ping An waiver meetings and who had the authority to sign off on the waiver.
Only two large state-run financial institutions were granted similar waivers, filings show, while three of China’s big state-run insurance companies were forced to break up. Many of the country’s big banks complied with the breakup requirement — enforced after the financial crisis because of concerns about the stability of the financial system — by selling their assets in other institutions.
Ping An issued a statement to The Times saying the company strictly complies with rules and regulations, but does not know the backgrounds of all entities behind shareholders. The company also said “it is the legitimate right of shareholders to buy and sell shares between themselves.”
In Beijing, China’s foreign ministry did not return calls seeking comment for this article. Earlier, a Foreign Ministry spokesman sharply criticized the investigation by The Times into the finances of Mr. Wen’s relatives, saying it “smears China and has ulterior motives.”
After The Times reported last month on the family’s wealth, lawyers representing the family said the article contained unspecified errors and that the family reserved the right to take legal action.
In addition, the Chinese government blocked access to the English-language and Chinese-language Web sites of The Times in China — and continues to do so — saying the action was “in accordance with laws and rules.”
Neither Mr. Wen, who is expected to retire in March, nor Mr. Dai, who is now the head of the National Social Security Fund, could be reached for comment.
Western and Chinese bankers and lawyers involved in Ping An’s 2004 Hong Kong stock listing and a subsequent 2007 listing in Shanghai said they did not know that relatives of Mr. Wen had acquired large stakes in the company.
Executives at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, which once held sizable stakes in Ping An and served as lead underwriters for the Hong Kong public offering, also said they were never told of the holdings. At Ping An’s urging, the two investment banks had also appealed in 2000 to Mr. Wen and other regulators for the waiver from the breakup rule. The private equity divisions of the two investment banks sold their combined stakes to HSBC in 2005 for about $1 billion — a 14-fold increase on their initial investment.
Thousands of pages of publicly available corporate documents reviewed by The Times suggest that the Ping An stakes held by the prime minister’s relatives were concealed behind layers of obscure partnerships rather than being held directly in their names.
In an interview last month, Duan Weihong, a wealthy Wen family friend, said that the shares in Ping An actually belonged to her and that it was an accident that Mr. Wen’s relatives appeared in shareholding records. The process involved borrowing their government identity cards and obtaining their signatures.
China and Hong Kong have detailed regulations on the disclosure of corporate information deemed material to a publicly listed company’s operation, like the identities of large shareholders and details about whether companies controlling large stakes are related parties. But legal experts say enforcement is often lax, particularly inside China. There is also, they say, a culture of nominee shareholders — when one person holds shares on behalf of someone else — that is difficult for even the most seasoned lawyers and accountants to penetrate.
The Times found no indication such regulations or any law was broken, nor any evidence that Mr. Wen held shares in Ping An under his own name.
After reviewing questions from The Times, the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange declined to comment. The China Securities Regulatory Commission in Beijing did not respond to inquiries.
HSBC, today Ping An’s largest shareholder with about 15.5 percent of its stock, declined to comment. The company announced last week that it is considering selling its stake in Ping An as part of a broad effort to raise capital.
Ping An today is a hugely successful conglomerate with revenue of $40 billion last year and about 500,000 insurance agents across China. It is China’s only fully integrated financial institution, with the second largest insurer, a trust company and brokerage house.
In late 2010, Ping An added more firepower, announcing a $4 billion deal that has since given it control of the Shenzhen Development Bank, one of China’s midsize commercial banks. Ping An is now building a new headquarters here in Shenzhen, a spectacular 115-story office tower that was designed by the New York architectural firm Kohn Pedersen Fox.
Ping An’s Close Call
Ma Mingzhe, the Ping An chairman and chief executive, was a high school graduate who got his start as an aide to Yuan Geng, a pioneering figure in some of China’s earliest economic reforms and an early leader of Ping An.
Impressed with Mr. Ma’s intellect, Mr. Yuan put him in charge of human resources at a state-managed industrial park, and eventually at a new insurance firm, Ping An, which took root in Shenzhen, a coastal boomtown.
Mr. Ma’s timing was opportune. China was just beginning to restructure its state-led economy. The government began dismantling the iron rice bowl system, which had guaranteed pensions, social insurance and living quarters to Communist Party cadres.
Although Ping An was founded as a state entity, it was one of the first Chinese insurance companies to experiment with Western management systems, including the use of actuaries and back-office operations, as well as foreign shareholders.
Mr. Ma helped manage the tiny company when it was founded in 1988. Several years later, he was looking for big-name shareholders from the United States.
In 1994, the private equity divisions of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs each paid about $35 million to acquire 7.5 percent interests in Ping An. At the time, they were the largest foreign investments ever made in a Chinese financial institution.
Much of the company’s early success was attributed to Mr. Ma, a hard-charging executive who was admired for his management and political skills — and for taking risks.
“He had all the qualities of a great entrepreneur,” says Yan Feng, who helped run Ping An’s Shanghai office in the 1990s. “He was a quick learner, knew how to adapt to new situations and was really determined. He’d do whatever it takes to get what he wants.”
But the company’s growth drive ran into trouble in the late 1990s, when China’s economy weakened after the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
The bloated state sector began to collapse, and by 1998, some of the nation’s biggest banks were nearly insolvent.
Ping An’s hard-won fortunes were also evaporating. Like most big Chinese insurers, Ping An had won new clients with investment products that guaranteed big returns over long periods based on the high interest rates banks offered for deposits during a time of inflation. When interest rates plummeted in the mid-1990s, losses piled up.
In 1999, senior executives at Ping An began to acknowledge that the company could soon be insolvent. As a joint-stockholding company, Ping An had big institutional investors, mostly state companies. But many of them refused to come to the company’s aid by purchasing additional shares, which would have provided needed capital.
“They weren’t sure Ping An would survive,” said one former Ping An executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
There was also mounting pressure from the government. Worried about systemic risks to the financial system, regulators in Beijing stepped up their enforcement of laws that required financial institutions to limit the scope of their business activities.
Banks were told to sell their stakes in brokerage houses or trust companies; and insurance companies had to choose to operate in life or property insurance, but not both.
After China’s new insurance regulatory agency was established in 1998, it began pressing Ping An to shed its trust and securities business, and to split its life and property insurance divisions into separate companies.
At a news conference in November 1999, Ma Yongwei, then the chairman of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, said the agency had already drawn up plans to split up Ping An and other insurers.
“The separation plans have been submitted to the State Council for approval,” Ma Yongwei told the media, adding that they would “deepen reform of the insurance system.”
Pushing Back the Regulators
With his company about to be broken up, Ma Mingzhe, also known as Peter Ma, fired off letters to leaders in Beijing, dictated memos reminding himself to “buy golf clubs” for high-ranking officials, and kept detailed charts outlining the lobbying responsibilities of each top executive at Ping An, according to a copy of those records verified by former Ping An executives.
Mr. Ma focused much of his personal energy on China’s highest government administrative body, the State Council, a 38-member group whose senior leaders were Prime Minister Zhu Rongji and Wen Jiabao, then vice premier. The company also sought the support of Dai Xianglong, the nation’s central bank chief, who also had oversight over the insurance industry.
Mr. Wen was in a unique position. He was head of China’s powerful Central Financial Work Commission, which had been established in 1998 to oversee the country’s banking, securities and insurance regulators, as well as China’s biggest financial institutions.
When Mr. Ma met regulators, he told them his company was facing insolvency and asked them to help shore up the company’s balance sheet by approving a Hong Kong stock offering, according to transcripts of Ping An meetings and interviews with participants.
“Now, Ping An’s life insurance is in a loss, and property insurance and the trust company have thin margins,” Mr. Ma wrote in the Sept. 29, 1999, letter to Mr. Wen. The contents were confirmed by two former top Ping An executives.
Rather than an out-and-out breakup, Mr. Ma offered a middle road. After seeking advice of other investors, Mr. Ma proposed the formation of a holding company that would effectively separate life insurance from property but keep them under one corporate umbrella, along with the securities and trust division.
The company, he said, would re-establish itself as the Ping An Group, according to Ping An documents reviewed by The Times. He then began looking for allies to promote his proposal.
In January 2000, with Mr. Ma’s backing, executives from Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs wrote a joint letter to Mr. Wen arguing that a breakup would “violate China’s policy to encourage and protect foreign investment,” according to a copy of the letter reviewed by The Times. The letter’s authenticity was verified by former executives at the two investment banks.
The American investment banks warned that “as a listed company in the U.S., we could be required to disclose our losses relating to the investment in Ping An, which would not be helpful for the image of China’s policy of reform and opening to the outside.”
The letter came after months of aggressive lobbying on the part of Ping An executives and the two American banks to persuade other high-ranking officials in Beijing, including the central bank and the insurance regulator, to hold Ping An together, according to corporate documents reviewed by The Times.
As early as 1999, executives at Ping An also began making contact with the relatives of Mr. Wen.
Hu Kun, a former Ping An employee who served as Mr. Ma’s staff assistant from 1997 to 2000, recalled a 1999 meeting between Mr. Ma and Zhang Beili, the wife of Mr. Wen.
Mr. Hu said he was not told what transpired at the meeting, but he recalled his boss’s reaction. “Because of that meeting, Chairman Ma got very excited,” said Mr. Hu, who is now living in the United States and who has quarreled with Ping An over 52,000 shares he claimed he was owed.
Corporate records reviewed by The Times indicate that Mr. Ma held an afternoon meeting and then dinner with the prime minister’s wife and Li Chunyan, who ran Ping An’s office in Beijing, on June 17, 1999.
It is not known what they discussed, but the relationship seemed to flourish. Around the same time, a diamond company partly controlled by the relatives of Ms. Zhang began occupying office space at the Ping An office tower in Beijing, according to records the diamond company filed with regulators. Later, a start-up co-founded by Wen Yunsong, the son of Ms. Zhang and the prime minister, won a lucrative technology contract from Ping An, according to interviews with former Ping An executives.
Mr. Ma, who is 56 and still runs Ping An, declined to comment for this article. Interviews with four senior executives who worked with Mr. Ma and Mr. Hu at the corporate headquarters in Shenzhen during the same period corroborate Mr. Hu’s recollections and the content of the documents reviewed by The Times concerning Ping An’s lobbying efforts and meetings with the relatives of Mr. Wen.
In addition, Li Chunyan, who ran the Beijing office, confirmed in a telephone interview that during that period he had brought Ms. Zhang to meet the Ping An chairman, Mr. Ma.
The documents and interviews shed no light on whether those meetings played a role in the decision by government regulators to abandon plans to split up Ping An. But in April 2002, the nation’s top regulators delivered their verdict. With approval of the State Council and insurance regulators, Ping An began the process of transforming itself into a financial conglomerate.
The company was not only allowed to retain property and life insurance licenses, but also licenses that permitted it to operate a brokerage and a trust company. It was also allowed to obtain a bank license.
Together, analysts say, the licenses were worth a fortune in China’s tightly regulated marketplace.
“They were one of the few who got to enjoy these gold-digging benefits,” said Bob Leung, a longtime insurance analyst at UBS in Hong Kong.
By late 2002, Ping An had not simply survived the downturn, its prospects had begun to look bright. The company’s restructuring bolstered revenue and profits. In October of that year, one of the world’s biggest banks, HSBC, agreed to pay $600 million to acquire a 10 percent stake in the company from Ping An. Just over a year later, regulators approved the company’s application to list and sell shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
While Ping An was preparing for its listing in Hong Kong, a group of investors with close ties to senior officials in Beijing, including Wen Jiabao, were quietly accumulating large blocks of Ping An stock.
Buying Into Ping An
On Dec. 26, 2002, Ping An filings show, a company run by Duan Weihong, a Wen family friend from the prime minister’s hometown, acquired Ping An stock through a company called Taihong. Soon after, the relatives of Mr. Wen and colleagues of his wife took control of that investment vehicle, the records show.
According to documents Ping An filed ahead of its Hong Kong listing, Taihong acquired 77.7 million shares of Ping An from the China Ocean Shipping Company, a global shipping giant known as Cosco, and 2.2 million more shares from Cosco’s Dalian subsidiary. A two-for-one stock split doubled the number of shares Taihong owned. So in June 2004, just before Ping An’s Hong Kong offering, Taihong held 159.8 million shares, or about 3.2 percent of Ping An’s stock, according to public filings.
In an interview, Ms. Duan said she had paid about 40 cents a share at current exchange rates, or a total of $65 million, to acquire the shares.
The price seems to have been a huge and unusual discount, analysts say, since HSBC had two months earlier acquired its 10 percent stake for about $1.60 a share, according to public filings.
Cosco did not return calls seeking comment.
For Taihong, it was a blockbuster purchase. By 2007, when the price of Ping An’s stock peaked, the 159 million shares were valued at $3.7 billion — though by 2007 Taihong had already significantly reduced its stake, according to public filings.
While Taihong was the shareholder of record, the beneficiaries of the Ping An deal were cloaked behind more than a dozen investment vehicles controlled by the relatives of Mr. Wen, including two brothers-in-law, a sister-in-law, as well as several longtime colleagues and business partners of his wife, Zhang Beili, according to corporate and regulatory documents. All of them were listed, along with Ms. Duan, as the owners of Taihong.
And by 2007, the prime minister’s mother, who is now 91, was listed on public documents as holding $120 million worth of Ping An stock through a pair of investment companies linked to Taihong.
Ms. Duan, who says she got to know the prime minister’s family in 2000, said that she bought the Ping An shares for her own personal account. The Wen relatives only appear in the Taihong shareholding records, she said, because her company borrowed the government-issued identity cards of other people — mistakenly, she said, from relatives of the prime minister — to help mask her own Ping An stake from the public.
“In the end,” Ms. Duan said, “I received 100 percent of the returns.”
The Fallout
In 2001, China issued new regulations that put restrictions on trading in listed shares by Communist Party members and their families.
For instance, the rules barred party officials in charge of a state-owned company from using their parents, children — or even their children’s spouse’s relatives — to trade stocks of a listed state-owned company.
The Times found no indication that Mr. Wen shared inside information with family members.
But there are many unanswered questions about the relatives’ holdings, analysts consulted by The Times said, like who might have known about the relatives’ purchases and whether anyone had a legal obligation to disclose that information.
Executives at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs say they were unaware of the share purchases and were not involved in the transactions.
The companies also said that a typical I.P.O. process is unlikely to uncover the ultimate identity of shareholders who are hiding behind layers of investment vehicles using unrecognizable names.
According to regulations in Hong Kong and China, publicly listed companies and their professional partners who help sell shares to the public are legally obligated to disclose the identities of only those shareholders controlling a stake larger than 5 percent. The Times found that at its peak, Taihong, the investment vehicle tied to the Wen family, never held more than a 3.2 percent stake.
Another question that remains unanswered is how Taihong was able to buy shares of Ping An at a price that appears to have been highly discounted. By late 2002, Ping An had already become a hot I.P.O. prospect following a big investment by HSBC.
The answers to some of the questions, legal experts say, may turn on who was involved in brokering the deal that led to the relatives’ acquiring shares in Ping An in the period before the company’s public offering in 2004, and whether the deal-makers were seeking to gain favors from the regulators.
“The key questions are: why were these people chosen, and on what terms did they get the shares?” said Jerome A. Cohen, a professor at New York University Law School and an expert on China’s legal system. “Obviously, everyone would like to get in before a hot I.P.O.”
(DAVID BARBOZA)
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