What’s new: Gu Jiangang, a former head of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd.’s (ICBC) (中国工商银行股份有限公司) (601398.SH) asset management department, has been charged with embezzlement and taking bribes, China’s top prosecutor announced on Sunday.
Prosecutors in the northwestern province of Gansu accused Gu of using his power and influence in various positions at ICBC to embezzle “huge sums” from the bank, and helping companies or individuals with listings, fundraising and project contracting in exchange for “enormous amounts” of bribes, according to the announcement.
State-owned ICBC is the world’s largest bank by assets.
The background: Gu’s posts at ICBC included vice president of the bank’s Beijing branch and general manager of the Shanghai branch’s financial planning department, public information shows.
He became general manager of the bank’s asset management department in or around 2016, and chaired its wealth management subsidiary for about one and a half years immediately after it was set up in 2019, sources with knowledge of the matter told Caixin. Gu was later in charge of the establishment of a joint wealth management venture between ICBC and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., they said.
An investigation into Gu was announced by China’s top anti-corruption watchdog in August. The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection in February announced that Gu had been expelled from the Communist Party and dismissed from his position at ICBC.
Contact reporter Zhang Yukun (yukunzhang@caixin.com) and editor Jonathan Breen (jonathanbreen@caixin.com)
