Wang Jun, the ‘princeling’ who chaired one of the world’s biggest asset-owning conglomerates at Citic Group, dies at the age of 78
- Wang Jun, former chairman of Citic Group and the Poly Group, has died at the age of 78, according to Chinese state media
- Wang was the son of Wang Zhen, one of the Eight Elders of the Chinese Communist Party and a founding elder of the modern People’s Republic
Wang Jun, the son of one of communist China’s founding elders and a former chairman of the country’s largest state conglomerate, died on Monday, aged 78.
Wang died at 10.56pm on June 10, according to a report by state-owned news outlet Thepaper.cn in Shanghai, citing unidentified sources and without elaborating. Xinhua News Agency, the government’s mouthpiece, has yet to report the news.
Wang, who carried the rank of a full government minister, was chairman of China International Trust and Investment Corporation, better known as Citic, between 1995 and 2006.
With 375 billion yuan (US$54 billion) in 2013 revenue, the Beijing-based state investment vehicle was China’s largest company and one of the biggest owners of foreign assets in the world, operating a range of businesses from banking and finance to real estate and heavy industries. The company has yet to issue a statement.
The company was founded in 1979 as a vehicle for the Chinese government to raise capital when it embarked on capitalist market reforms in the late 1970s. Citic’s founder Rong Yiren – dubbed the Red Capitalist – was China’s vice-president from 1993 until 1998.
