Economic crime police may scupper China’s CEFC’s $9bn deal with Rosneft
London — Chinese conglomerate CEFC China Energy Company had already started paying for a stake in Russian oil giant Rosneft when the economic crime police took its chair Ye Jianming away, halting the $9.1bn deal in its tracks, according to three sources close to the matter. The fate of the deal, one of the largest Chinese investments in Russia, has become a litmus test of how far President Xi Jinping’s government is prepared to go with a crackdown on financially risky activities among big-spending conglomerates. The acquisition of the stake in the Russian state oil firm is seen as strengthening relations between Russia and China, the world’s top energy exporter and top energy consumer. CEFC was buying the 14.16% stake from a consortium including Swiss trader Glencore. It had transferred the first tranche of payment before it ceased all communications, the sources told Reuters. The sources declined to say how much had been paid. One said the fact some money had changed hands would ma...
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