As the only cadre in the financial circles who started as a counter teller at the most basic level and gradually grew into the president of the head office of a state-owned bank, Sun Deshun not only did not "cherish feathers," but on the contrary thought that he was highly capable of business, and "colluded with illegal businessmen and engaged in power and money transactions on a large scale." Through meticulous design, he covered up power and money transactions layer by layer, and eventually became a typical example of corruption in the mainland's financial sector with particularly serious problems, particularly bad nature, and particularly huge amounts.
"Because I came from the grassroots level and have strong business capabilities, I always feel that my business capabilities are there, which has caused a fluke mentality." In the camera, Sun Deshun, who has worked in the banking industry for more than 40 years, expresses his remorse.
On the evening of January 18, the fourth episode of the tv special film "Zero Tolerance," "Systematic Governance," jointly produced by the Propaganda Department of the State Supervision Commission of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the CCTV of the Central Radio and Television Corporation, was broadcast on the CCTV comprehensive channel of the Central Television Station, and a large number of details of Sun Deshun, former deputy secretary of the party committee and president of China CITIC Bank Co., Ltd., were also exposed.
As the person in charge of an important state-owned commercial bank, Sun Deshun even designed a heavy bunker with an extremely complex structure in order to seek personal interests: the first layer was to arrange two old subordinates as agents to open two investment platform companies, two platform companies were his core management team, and the first layer of "shadows" was hidden in front of him; more than a dozen project companies were set up under the platform companies as the second layer of "shadows", and the project companies and bribery companies did not directly trade, but the two sides each set up shell companies as the third layer of "shadows" ", multi-layered shadow companies are nested layer by layer. The transaction entity itself has been ghosted, and the capital transactions have been disguised as various seemingly legal financial products and equity investment agreements, using "shadow transactions" to convey interests and then cast a layer of fog.
After studying, the special case team decided not to spin around in the shadow maze, but in turn from the source, sort out the loan credit promoted by Sun Deshun in China CITIC Bank, find the obvious abnormal decision-making matters, and then investigate the relationship between the enterprises that obtained the loan and Sun Deshun. This investigation strategy also pinpoints the core of Sun Deshun's corruption problem, that is, using credit approval power for personal gain.
Tend to lend to real estate
"He pays attention to what makes money quickly and works quickly." He tended to lend to real estate, and when he presided over the president's office meeting, he openly and bluntly demanded that the whole bank must stop the manufacturing loan for me immediately, even if you have 100% mortgage, that is not OK. Fan Xiangpeng, a staff member of the Central Discipline Inspection Commission and the State Supervision Commission, said.
In recent years, the central government has repeatedly stressed that finance should return to the source of serving the real economy, increase support for the manufacturing industry, and prevent excessive concentration of credit funds in real estate, but Sun Deshun is the opposite. According to the feature film, there is another hidden reason why Sun Deshun increased real estate loans, that is, to seek personal interests.
The investigation found that some real estate company owners were closely related to Sun Deshun and there was an exchange of interests. For example, a real estate company owner once sent 10 million yuan to the company actually controlled by Sun Deshun in the name of investment, and the return was more than 4 billion yuan through Sun Deshun's approved loan credit.
During this period, Sun Deshun's behavior also affected the loan structure of China CITIC Bank, on the one hand, the growth rate of real estate loans reached more than 40%, and manufacturing loans were under pressure at that time, and the pressure drop reached more than 30%. The long-term risks posed by China CITIC Bank's over-proportion of loans to the real estate industry have gradually emerged. In February 2020, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission issued a huge administrative penalty fine of 22 million yuan to China CITIC Bank, and of the 19 penalties, 13 involved real estate business.
Think that receiving cash is too low-end
In addition, Sun Deshun, who has strong self-confidence in business ability, believes that cash collection is too low-end, so it is possible to complete the transmission of benefits through well-designed "shadow" companies and financial means, etc., and its degree of specialization and complexity is quite rare.
"He has a characteristic that he does not accept cash, he thinks that cash collection is too low-end, too simple and rude. The way he cashed out his interests was very professional, and he did layers of cover-ups, that is, he set up a lot of firewalls, went around a lot of circles, and used unique financial means and products to cover up. Fan Xiangpeng, a staff member of the Central Discipline Inspection Commission and the State Supervision Commission, said.
On the one hand, Sun Deshun used public power to approve loans for business owners in China CITIC Bank; correspondingly, some of these business owners injected huge amounts of money into the platform companies actually controlled by Sun Deshun in the name of investment, and some sent high-quality investment projects or investment opportunities; at the same time, the platform companies controlled by Sun Deshun used the funds provided by these bosses to invest in the projects provided by those bosses, make money with money, and share profits and dividends with the bosses to form a community of interests.
At the end of 2014, a high-debt energy company that had experienced a debt crisis applied for a loan from China CITIC Bank, and according to the regulations, such companies generally do not issue loans. But with Sun Deshun's intervention, the $4 billion loan was disbursed to the company, which soon formed non-performing assets. In order to express gratitude to Sun Deshun, the actual controller of the company and the platform company controlled by Sun Deshun signed a capital increase agreement, thus completing the transfer of benefits. As a result, the energy company made an actual profit of 100 million yuan for the company controlled by Sun Deshun through the so-called equity investment agreement.
The feature film shows that there are many such power and money transactions, and the packaging methods for enterprises to convey benefits to Sun Deshun are various, but in exchange for the same things, that is, bank loans. Grasping this core, the ghost quickly dissipated, and the actual controller began to appear clearly, "In the process of interacting with some entrepreneurs, I always think of seeking some benefits for myself or my own stakeholders." Sun Deshun said.
As president, he also served as the director of the Loan Review Committee
It is worth mentioning that even if he is promoted to the position of president, Sun Deshun only has one veto power over credit approval, and has no approval power, but he ignores the system and directly interferes with credit approval.
The feature film shows that the approval of bank loans is generally submitted by loan customers to submit application materials and report for approval step by step according to procedures, while Sun Deshun often directly docks with enterprises, and then assigns them to subordinates to do it, using procedures inverted to operate in violation of the law. At the same time, according to the system design of China CITIC Bank, the president has only one veto power over credit approval, and has no approval power; the approval must be approved by the credit approval meeting collectively, and the main leaders must speak last. But in fact, Sun Deshun often ignores these systems and directly intervenes in credit approval, making the bank's internal control mechanism lose its role in the face of the power of the "number one".
Sun's case also highlights the importance of the key power to control credit approval. "He rose from vice president to president, and he still held this right, and he also served as the director of the loan review committee." As the director of the loan review committee, you should be the last to speak, that is, you can't come up and set the tone. But when he heard that others disagreed, he couldn't help it, and when he came up, he directly said, 'Why can't it work, you say no, how can't it work', others dare not say it. Banks originally had a relatively strict set of credit management and risk management procedures, and after this kind of human intervention, these procedures were penetrated. Fan Xiangpeng, a staff member of the Central Discipline Inspection Commission and the State Supervision Commission, said.
The feature film pointed out that Sun Deshun's serious violation of discipline and law reflects that the reasons for the lack of supervision in the financial sector are both the problem of imperfect internal supervision system and the lack of industry supervision. "Reflecting on our financial supervision work through the case, one is that there are still problems of loose and soft performance of duties, on the other hand, some systems and regulations in the financial field need to be improved urgently, and there are deficiencies in the regulatory system in some intersecting and innovative fields, which has led to some financial risks and financial chaos." Mao Fengjun, deputy director of the Party Committee Office of the General Office of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, said.
In view of the problems exposed by Sun Deshun's case, the State Supervision Commission of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection promoted the systematic development of CHINA CITIC Bank to promote reform through cases, first of all, to correct the corporate governance structure, strengthen the responsibilities of the board of directors, the board of supervisors, and the senior management, determine the relationship between them and mutual restraint and mutual supervision, and at the same time promote the reform of the credit system, risk management system and approval system, strengthen the accountability mechanism, improve the corporate governance system, and improve the governance capacity.
At the same time, in view of the lack of supervision and ineffective supervision, in the new round of institutional reform, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission directly dispatched discipline inspection and supervision teams to 18 central financial institutions, including CITIC Group. From 2019 to December 2021 alone, the discipline inspection and supervision team assigned to financial units filed cases to review and investigate 81 management cadres of the party committees stationed in the units. (Beijing Time Finance Wu Shan)