New | Senior banking regulator who helped restructure China's trust sector dies
Li Jianhua, 49, suffered fatal heart attack
A mainland banking regulatory official who led the opening and restructuring of the country’s trust sector died of a heart attack on Wednesday morning, mainland media reported.
The China Banking Regulatory Commission confirmed with financial magazine that Li Jianhua, director of the regulator’s Non-bank Financial Institutions Supervision Department, was found dead by his wife at home at around 6am on Wednesday morning.
49–year-old Li suffered a heart attack, several mainland financial news outlets reported.
Li was supposed to attend a conference on the performance of the country’s trust sector in its first season on Wednesday morning, and was up until midnight writing his speech, quoted a source close to the bank regulator as saying.
The news came on the heels of the new directive on the trust sector. On April 10, the regulatory commission issued stricter guidelines governing trust companies to counter systemic risks they could pose to the country’s finance industry.
Li, then deputy director of the non-bank supervision department, led the drafting of China’s 2007 legislations on trust companies, which pushed forward reforms of the country’s trust sectors.
Trust companies are non-bank lenders that raise funds by selling high-yield investments, also known as wealth management products, and fund loans to property developers and local governments, among other risky borrowers.
