Sun Deshun, the former president of China CITIC Bank, has worked in the banking industry for nearly 40 years and is the only cadre in China's financial circles who started from being a counter teller at the grass-roots level of bank outlets to becoming the president of the head office of a state-owned bank. With the professional ability accumulated over the years, he carefully designed and cleverly laid out in an attempt to cover up the true face of his crazy accumulation of wealth, but in the end he failed to escape the sanctions of party discipline and state law. The recent anti-corruption documentary "Zero Tolerance" exposed a large number of details of Sun Deshun's financial corruption case, revealing the truth that he used layers of shadow companies to accept ill-gotten gains.
Disappearing after 7 months of retirement is listed as a typical example of corruption in the financial sector
According to public resumes, Sun Deshun was born in November 1958 and has worked in the banking industry for 38 years with deep qualifications. From 1981 to 1984, Sun Deshun worked for Chinese Minmin Bank; in 1984, he joined the newly established Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and successively worked in ICBC Haidian District Office, Haidian District Branch, Beijing Branch, Data Center (Beijing) and other units. From December 1995 to November 2005, he served as Assistant President and Vice President of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Beijing Branch. In December 2005, Sun Deshun took office as Party Secretary and President of the Beijing Branch of the New Bank of Communications, and four years later, he became the Vice President of the Beijing Management Department of the Bank of Communications and the Secretary of the Party Committee and President of the Beijing Branch of the Bank of Communications. In October 2011, Sun Deshun was transferred to the deputy secretary of the party committee of China CITIC Bank, and soon became the vice president and executive vice president of the bank, and in July 2016, he was promoted to the president of China CITIC Bank.
However, Sun Deshun did not sit in the president's seat for 3 years before stepping down. In February 2019, China CITIC Bank announced that Sun Deshun, 61, had retired at an old age, although he retained the position of chairman of China CITIC Bank (International) Limited. Sun Deshun's retirement life, which should have been comfortable, was very short. In mid-September of that year, the news of Sun Deshun's disappearance spread in the financial circle.
In March 2020, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission reported the results of the review and investigation of Sun Deshun. After investigation, Sun Deshun lost his ideals and convictions, had no political consciousness and awareness of the overall situation, seriously violated the decision-making and deployment of the party Central Committee on the real economy of financial services, restricted and suppressed manufacturing loans; violated the spirit of the eight regulations of the central authorities, borrowed real estate from loan customers in violation of the law, and had others pay expenses that should be borne by himself; did not report personal matters in accordance with regulations, and illegally sought benefits for others in the recruitment of staff and workers; his values were extremely distorted, he wanted to become an official and wanted to get rich, he ran a business and run enterprises in violation of the law, and grabbed huge profits for himself and his relatives and friends Greed is extremely inflated, using the power to approve loans as a bargaining chip for personal gain, colluding with lawless businessmen, engaging in power and money transactions, taking advantage of one's position to seek benefits for others in terms of loan granting and examination and approval, and illegally accepting huge sums of money.
The circular was very harshly worded, bluntly saying that Sun Deshun was "a typical example of a particularly serious problem of corruption in the financial sector, a particularly bad nature, and a particularly huge amount." In May of the same year, the procuratorate indicted and accused Sun Deshun of seeking benefits for others and illegally accepting property from others by taking advantage of his positions as vice president of the Beijing Branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, president of the Beijing Branch of the Bank of Communications, and vice president and president of the China CITIC Bank, and that the amount was particularly huge, and that he should be investigated for criminal responsibility for accepting bribes according to law. Since then, there has been no further official news in Sun Deshun's case.
Why did Sun Deshun restrict and reduce manufacturing loans? How does he run a business to grab huge profits for himself? How did he use the power to approve loans as a bargaining chip for personal gain? For these issues, the anti-corruption feature film "Zero Tolerance" reveals a lot of details.
Pursuing immediate interests favors real estate loans
There have been many bank executives who have fallen in recent years, but the problem of "restricting and suppressing manufacturing loans" appears in the circular very rarely.
Judging from the two complete annual reports of Sun Deshun as president of China CITIC Bank, the balance and proportion of the bank's manufacturing loans have indeed declined continuously. At the end of 2018, the real estate industry surpassed the manufacturing industry and became the industry with the largest concentration of loans from CHINA CITIC Bank. The concentration of corporate loan customers in the annual report also shows that in 2017 and 2018, more and more real estate companies became large customers of CHINA CITIC Bank's corporate business.
At the end of 2018, two of The ten largest corporate loan customers of China CITIC Bank had two in the manufacturing sector, the fifth and tenth largest customers, and four real estate customers, ranking second, fourth, seventh and ninth respectively. At the end of 2016, among the top ten corporate loan customers of China CITIC Bank, the manufacturing industry was also two, but there was only 1 customer in the real estate industry.
In recent years, the central government has repeatedly emphasized 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. Why did Sun Deshun go against the grain?
In the feature film, Fan Xiangpeng, a staff member of the Central Discipline Inspection Commission and the State Supervision Commission, unveiled the reason: "He is concerned about what makes money quickly and achieves results 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. ”
The long-term risks posed by china's excessive proportion of loans to the real estate industry 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 13 of the 19 penalties involved real estate business.
Fan Xiangpeng pointed out that this fully reflects the problem of Sun Deshun's view of political performance, the pursuit of immediate interests, partial interests, the annual report will be very good, but it will cause great hidden dangers in the future.
The loan of more than 4 billion yuan was profitable by 10 million yuan
In addition to pursuing political achievements, Sun Deshun favors real estate loans for another hidden reason, that is, to seek personal interests. He appeared in the feature film and said: "In the process of interacting with some entrepreneurs, I always think of seeking some benefits for myself or my own stakeholders. ”
The investigation found that some real estate company owners were close to him and there was an exchange of benefits. 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.
"He seriously violated political discipline, and as the head of an important state-owned commercial bank, he should have shouldered political mission and social responsibility, but he put the major decisions and deployments of the central government behind, and only pursued his so-called performance and honored the interests of some bosses." Fan Xiangpeng said.
Suspected cash collection is too low-end Set up a three-tier shadow company to accumulate wealth
Lai Xiaomin, the former chairman of The Chinese Finance Industry, who has been executed, specially used a set of vacant houses to store the huge amount of cash he received, and also gave a name called "supermarket"; Wei Pengyuan, former deputy director of the Coal Department of the National Energy Administration, privately hid hundreds of millions of yuan in cash, which made the special case team's money detector overwhelmed and directly burned out... These high-profile corruption cases have shocked the public and formed the impression that corrupt officials are all receiving cash.
However, Sun Deshun, who has been dealing with Qian for nearly forty years, did not do so. He does not accept cash, thinking that cash collection is too low-end, too simple and rude. Sun Deshun, who has superb business ability, tries to cover up power and money transactions through elaborate design. The way he cashed out his interests was very professional, setting up a lot of firewalls, going around a lot of circles, and using unique financial means and products to cover up layer by layer.
The survey found that Sun Deshun is a typical example of the use of "shadow companies" and financial means to complete the transmission of benefits, and its degree of specialization and complexity is quite rare. He arranged two old subordinates as agents to open two investment platform companies, and the so-called legal persons at the front of the two companies were actually just "shadows" of Sun Deshun's endorsement.
Sun Deshun designed a heavy bunker with an extremely complex structure, two platform companies are his core management team, is the first layer of "shadow" hidden in front of him; under the platform company, more than a dozen project companies have been set up as the second layer of "shadows", the project companies and bribery companies are not direct transactions, but the two sides have each set up a shell company as the third layer of "shadows", and the multi-layer shadow companies are nested layer by layer.
On the one hand, Sun Deshun used public power at China CITIC Bank to approve loans for business owners; correspondingly, some of these bosses injected huge amounts of money into the platform companies he actually controlled in the name of investment, and some sent high-quality investment projects or investment opportunities; platform companies 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. 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.
For example, Fan Xiangpeng said that at the end of 2014, an energy company applied for a loan from China CITIC Bank because the energy company had a debt crisis and was a highly indebted enterprise, and generally did not issue loans. However, under the intervention of Sun Deshun, the 4 billion yuan loan was issued to enterprises, and non-performing assets were soon formed. In order to express his gratitude to Sun Deshun, the actual controller of this company signed a capital increase agreement with the platform company controlled by Sun Deshun, thus completing the transfer of benefits. Through the so-called equity investment agreement, the energy company actually made a profit of 100 million yuan for the company controlled by Sun Deshun.
It is worth noting that when Sun Deshun was investigated that year, some insiders believed that Sun Deshun was likely to be involved in the case of Bao Mou, the former chairman of CITIC Xincheng Asset Management Co., Ltd. According to reports, in 2018, Bao Mou was suspected of job-related crimes, was investigated, which involved the rectification of the capital pool and the secret crossing of Chen Cang, lending money to employees to establish a "vest" private equity company; delivering huge profits of up to 2 billion yuan to the partnership of the company under his son's name; stepping on the thunder real estate development project.
At present, there is no more official authoritative information on Bao's case, and he is not mentioned in the "Zero Tolerance" film when telling sun Deshun's case. However, if the report was true at the time, the practice of lending money to employees to set up a "vest" private equity company and delivering huge profits to the partnership under his son's name was similar to Sun Deshun's arrangement of designing a "shadow company".
Direct docking with enterprises Directly intervene in credit approval
There are various ways in which companies can deliver benefits to Sun Deshun, but in exchange for the same things, that is, bank loans. These blind spots have made the investigation extremely difficult, but they have not blinded the staff of the task force. Starting from the source, they sorted out the loan credit promoted by Sun Deshun in China CITIC Bank, found obvious abnormalities, and then targeted investigation of the association between the enterprises that obtained the loan and Sun Deshun. This investigative strategy has pinpointed the core of Sun's corruption problem, which is to use credit approval power for personal gain.
Bank loan approval is generally submitted by loan customers to submit application materials, in accordance with the procedure to report to the approval level, while Sun Deshun often directly docks with the enterprise, and then arranges for subordinates to do, using the procedure inverted way to operate illegally.
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 voted by the credit approval meeting collectively, and the main leaders must speak last. But in fact, Sun Deshun often ignored these systems and directly interfered in credit approval, and the bank's internal control mechanism lost its role in the face of the power of the "number one".
"He was promoted from vice president to president, and he still held this right, and he also served as the director of this 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. Fan Xiangpeng said that the bank originally had a relatively strict set of credit management and risk management procedures, and after this kind of human intervention, these procedures have been penetrated.
A number of fallen cadres of China CITIC Bank used their credit approval power to amass wealth
In addition to Sun Deshun, in recent years, many fallen cadres of China CITIC Bank have used the power of credit approval for private interests. Shortly after Sun Deshun's disappearance in September 2019, Yu Chengxin, former president of the Harbin branch of China CITIC Bank, and Chen Ying, former vice president and risk director of the Xiamen branch of China CITIC Bank, were also subject to disciplinary review and supervision and investigation.
On October 16, 2020, the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission published an in-depth observation article "The Transaction of Power and Money Behind Credit Approval", which disclosed the details of the cases of Yu Chengxin and Chen Ying.
Of the amount of bribes Chen Ying suspected of accepting, 97.8 percent were "exchanged" for using the power to approve credit. He unscrupulously "commoditized" the power in his hands, "selling" the credit approval power with one hand, and "buying" the huge risk with the other hand. The head of a group in Xiamen once gave Chen Ying a loan of HK$1 million and US$150,000 in the name of a shell company, and Chen Ying ignored the huge risks, instructed the relevant approval personnel to release the loan in violation of the law, and personally urged the loan, which eventually led to a large amount of non-performing loans.
As the president of the bank, Yu Chengxin does not participate in the specific work of the "front desk", and his means of interfering in the granting of credit is to "create" the access system for public credit, putting the president's final decision in the credit approval process in front. He arbitrarily stipulated that credit projects of more than 10 million yuan must not enter the review and approval process without his consent. Even when the credit review committee was discussing the credit granting project, Yu Chengxin often pushed the door in and made tendentious remarks at the credit review meeting that affected the independent judgment of the committee members.
Their means of profit are not as "advanced" as Sun Deshun's, and they have also been carefully designed and varied. Chen Ying once bought a property at a low price and sold it to customers at a high price, "borrowed" from customers in the name of others, and also asked customers to buy handicrafts at a high price in the store opened by his father-in-law.
Yu Chengxin's means of earning money from enterprises are more "roundabout", and the case-handling personnel have summarized his four "methods" - intermediary mediation, elongation of the front, false trust transaction, and service provision. For example, after Yu Chengxin handled a large loan for the owner of a private enterprise, he asked the boss to purchase a property under his name at a high price, which was nearly 2 million yuan different from the appraisal price of the property. In order to cover up the essence of the power and money transaction, he helped people to do things during his work in Harbin, most of them did not collect money immediately, but went to the Shenzhen Audit Center to work and then "recovered", and nearly 70% of the bribes he accepted were collected after arriving in Shenzhen.
In response to the problems exposed by Sun Deshun's case, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission promoted the systematic development of CHINA CITIC Bank to promote reform through the case. At present, China CITIC Bank has banned the president from serving as the director of the loan review committee to avoid direct interference by the president in credit projects. At the same time, we will improve the credit management system, investigate and approve the credit granting, and all the way to the management after the credit is granted, formulate corresponding management measures, and introduce the reform of the approver system, from the past administrative approval management system to the expert credit approval system, so that the entire credit management can be improved.
Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Cheng Jie
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