Another Chinese billionaire goes missing

The billionaire founder of Metersbonwe, one of China's best-known fashion brands, has gone missing, the latest in a series of Chinese business people and financiers apparently ensnared in the country's anti-corruption campaign.

Metersbonwe suspended trading in its shares on the Shenzhen stock exchange on Thursday while the company said it was investigating reports in the Chinese media that Zhou Chengjian, its chairman, had been picked up by police.

The company is a household name on the Chinese high street and Mr Zhou was China's 65th-richest man last year, according to the Hurun Rich list, with a fortune of Rmb26.5 billion (€3.7bn).

The company said in a second statement on Thursday night that it was unable to reach Mr Zhou or the secretary of the board, Tu Ke. The statement gave no further details.

Mr Zhou is the latest high-profile private sector businessmen believed to have been caught up in probs, and his disappearance follows the detention last month of Guo Guangchang of the conglomerate Fosun, which owns Club Med.

Mr Guo went missing for several days and was later reported by his company to be assisting authorities with an unspecified investigation. Sources close to the company later said he was not a target of that investigation.

Shockwaves

Until recently, the mainland private sector had been largely spared in the Chinese Communist party’s anti-corruption drive. Mr Guo’s detention therefore sent shockwaves through China’s business community.

Dozens of government officials, state-owned company officials and financial industry executives have also been investigated or detained in recent months.

Mr Zhou, a former tailor who became rich after founding one of China’s first nationwide fashion brands, went bankrupt twice before he was 18, but repeatedly relaunched businesses until he was successful.

Metersbonwe succeeded by selling fashionable clothes more cheaply than foreign brands such as H&M and Zara and targeting college students and recent graduates.

Mr Zhou told the Financial Times last year that he ended up running the village shop in the rural village where he was raised, in eastern Zhejiang province, because he was "lazier" than other members of the family. Mr Zhou recreated part of his village home inside the headquarters of his clothing brand in suburban Shanghai, complete with vegetable fields tilled by his elderly father.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2016