Investors in Richina, including Mainzeal directors Richard Yan and Dame Jenny Shipley, now have stakes worth millions - on paper at least. Yet despite significant loans from Mainzeal to Richina, no one could keep the New Zealand company afloat, or avoid losses to unsecured creditors of more than $115 million.
In 1980 a fresh-faced Chinese student arrived in Auckland, one of the first young people from Communist China to get a scholarship to the capitalist west after the end of the Cultural Revolution.
Yan Ciliang, or Richard Yan as he’s known in English, was 17 years old: bright, enthusiastic, optimistic, poor. The story goes that on arrival in Auckland the sum of his possessions was a Playboy-branded belt, a watch, a few clothes, a borrowed $50, and a scholarship to the University of Auckland.
Yan is now a wealthy businessman. A very wealthy businessman. On paper at least, Yan could be worth over $1 billion. Read the full article . . .>
