Wison Engineering Services Says Billionaire Founder Hua Bangsong Assists With China Corruption Probe on its business relationship with PetroChina
September 3, 2013 Leave a comment
Wison Says Founder Hua Bangsong Assists With China Probe
Wison Engineering Services Co. said its controlling shareholder Hua Bangsong is helping China’s authorities with their investigations, amid a corruption probe into its one-time largest client PetroChina Co. Wison has been informed that Hua “is now assisting the relevant authorities in the PRC in their investigations,” the company said today in a Hong Kong stock exchange filing. Wison fell 16 percent yesterday before its shares were halted. The company said it noted recent press reports on its business relationship with PetroChina Co., the country’s biggest oil and gas producer whose former chairman Jiang Jiemin and four other senior executives are being investigated by the government. Wison provides consulting, engineering and construction services to chemical factories and oil refineries.In its 2012 listing document, Wison said it had a nine-year business relationship with PetroChina, its largest client. In the three years ending 2011, Wison said its revenue from PetroChina and its subsidiaries amounted to 63 percent, 80 percent and 58 percent of its total, according to the document. In the six months ended June 30, 2012, revenue from PetroChina was 14 percent.
“The group’s revenue recognized from contracts with PetroChina and its subsidiaries for the six months ended June 30, 2013 was insignificant,” Wison said in the statement today, adding that the company is operating normally.
PetroChina’s Beijing-based spokesman Mao Zefeng did not answer two calls to his office seeking comment. A Wison spokesman was not available to answer questions, said a person who answered the office line at Wison’s Corporate Communications Department in Shanghai. Wison did not respond to an e-mail.
Sold Shares
Hua, also Wison’s founder, became a billionaire after the company sold shares in Hong Kong in December. He and his wife Huang Xing own 79 percent of the company, according to its listing prospectus.
Hua began his career as a salesman at a metal screen factory in Xinghua in eastern China’s Jiangsu province. He later started a company that made petrochemical machinery and accessories, as well as supplying raw materials for the oil industry. In 1997, he established Wison Engineering.
Wison, which has more than 3,000 employees in China, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia and the U.S., saw revenue in the first half rise 131 percent to 1.99 billion yuan, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
To contact the reporter on this story: Aibing Guo in Hong Kong at aguo10@bloomberg.net
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