bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sponsorType

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Ian Young

A Chinese company with gold-plated political connections is buying into a Canadian mountain.
And not just any mountain: Grouse Mountain, whose ski slopes famously look down on Vancouver.
The Shanghai-based China Minsheng Investment Group (CMIG) isn’t buying the entire mountain of course, but the sale of the ski operation by the Canadian McLaughlin family does include 500 hectares of privately owned land. CMIG’s pending purchase was revealed by the Globe and Mail last week.
Reports on Tuesday said CMIG was a 40 per cent stakeholder in the newly formed buyer, GM Resorts Limited Partnership. The CBC quoted a CMIG spokesman as saying it would be a “silent investor”.
The total asking price was C$200 million (US$159 million) – well below the threshold for federal foreign investment review - but the symbolic significance is obvious.
With its ski slopes floodlit at night, Grouse is like a north star when viewed from below, a literal guiding light that can be seen from just about anywhere in Vancouver.
Vancouver’s Mayor Gregor Robertson splits with pop star Wanting Qu
From up top, the ski slopes and hiking trails boast incredible views of the city and sea. Grouse Mountain isn’t world-famous like nearby Whistler - but it is Vancouver’s mountain.
In the next stage of our work, we must actively display the vanguard and exemplary spirits of the Chinese Communist Party
China Minsheng Investment Group website
Whistler, too, recently ended up in foreign hands, when US-based Vail Resorts bought Whistler Blackcomb Holdings for C$1.4 billion last October.
So is this just the way of the world? Is the sale of Grouse simply a more-modest version of the Whistler-Vail deal?
This way of thinking betrays a polite kind of Canadian naivete that verges on the quaint.
I’m not suggesting outrage is justified. Nor is the purchase demonstrably nefarious. However, even a cursory examination of what CMIG is all about suggests the Grouse deal is quite a different proposition to Whistler’s sale, regardless of the “silent investor” protestation.
Yes, CMIG is a privately owned firm, but it exists and was created at the pleasure of the Chinese state: CMIG sprang from the brow of Premier Li Keqiang when he ordered it created in 2014. Fifty-nine big Chinese firms dutifully stumped up 50 billion yuan (US$7.4 billion) in starting capital and it was away.
So China Minsheng Investment cannot be understood purely as a product of market forces, at least, not as Canadians generally understand them. It serves Chinese government policy, and its goals, explicitly stated on its corporate website, are those of the state.
“As a representative of Chinese private capital, CMIG serves the national ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ and ‘Going Global’ strategy, bringing out financial wisdom and industrial strength, focusing the power of capital, building a globalised industrial platform,” it says, namechecking various government policies.
Vancouver’s new property player has deep pockets - and a rich Chinese communist pedigree
“By fully utilising the technology, brand, and resource advantages of developed countries, and the tremendous opportunities of ‘Going Global and Bringing in’ brought by the development potentials of countries along the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ route, CMIG guides Chinese private capital to go abroad together, and promotes industrial upgrading and economic transformation.”
Look beyond the jargon and the purpose of CMIG is clear. It’s not just about profit. It’s a tool of Chinese national strategy and economic development.
This isn’t always incompatible with Canadian priorities, public and private. But China Minsheng is most certainly not analogous to some US ski company, or to western investment firms that are creatures of supply and demand.
On its website, CMIG extols the Communist Party, explaining that it was “90 years ago, thanks to a group of advanced Chinese intellectuals who spread Marxism on Chinese soil with Prometheus-like courage, our nation became independent and prosperous”.
“In the next stage of our work, we must actively display the vanguard and exemplary spirits of the Chinese Communist Party, realise the core values of ‘Five Concepts, Four Senses and Three Loves’ advocated by Chairman Dong [Wenbiao], and contribute to the development of China Minsheng Investment, and to the implementation of national strategies.
“With the dream faraway, we are on the way.”




The polit-speak isn’t unusual for a big Chinese company, but there should be no illusions about the company’s role.
The part purchase of Grouse cannot be viewed simply as a private firm, like any other, getting into the ski business. It’s part of a global acquisitions strategy endorsed and guided by the Chinese state.
In this respect, CMIG is the yin to Anbang Insurance’s yang. Both firms took to foreign acquisition like it was a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos. The main difference is that Anbang’s foreign activities – including the purchase of a chain of BC retirement homes, and Vancouver’s Bentall Centre for a record-setting C$1billion – were apparently not conducted with the happy endorsement of the Chinese state, and Anbang’s chairman Wu Xiaohui now sits behind bars for reasons unclear.
Another key difference – the provenance of CMIG’s capital and ownership is well known, while Anbang’s is a near-total mystery.
But like Anbang before it, CMIG has been growing at an explosive rate. It now boasts assets of 260 billion yuan, according to the state-owned China Daily. And CMIG isn’t just big, it is a behemoth in the making. Company president Li Huaizhen told the SCMP last year that it seeks a valuation of 1 trillion yuan by 2019. That’s an ambitious five-year goal for a company started from scratch, but its political purpose and backers make it a good bet, I reckon.
Its investments around the world so far include the purchase of Sirius International Insurance Group last year for US$2.6 billion, and a pledge of US$5billion to develop an industrial park in Indonesia. Through a subsidiary, it spent US$88 million in May on an 80 per cent stake in an under-construction luxury condo development in San Francisco, setting a price record in the process. In London, CMIG has been buying up property in the financial district, including Societe Generale’s UK headquarters for £84.5 million (US$110 million) in September.
And now a big stake in Grouse Mountain.
I doubt the good folk at CMIG know a mountain from a mogul, and the long-term strategic purpose of buying into a small ski resort in a coastal location that is seen as particularly vulnerable to global warming isn’t instantly obvious. But I’d bet those 500 hectares of private land (further distinguishing Grouse from Whistler, which leases Crown land) have a lot to do with it.
CMIG did not respond to the SCMP’s questions about the deal.
Canadians, mostly good capitalists, tend to accept that they are beholden to market forces. But as the Grouse sale demonstrates, they are also increasingly beholden the forces of Chinese state policy. This can be beneficial – certainly to the McLaughlins – but it’s a process that demands clear-eyed scrutiny.
*
This story has been corrected to show that CMIG claims its effective stake in the purchase is 40 per cent.
*
The Hongcouver blog is devoted to the hybrid culture of its namesake cities: Hong Kong and Vancouver. All story ideas and comments are welcome. Connect with me by email ian.young@scmp.com or on Twitter, @ianjamesyoung70.


From dressing Barbie to Michelle Obama, Jason Wu, fashion designer, on how he talked his way into the industry

HSBC suffered no risk from Meng Wanzhou’s alleged deceptions, court hears, as extradition fight enters crucial stage

Boeing 777 was chartered to fly Meng Wanzhou home, Canada court hears as she seeks to have bail relaxed

Canada wants to tax phantom foreign homebuyers to rein in red-hot property prices

Hongcouver

A Chinese policy instrument is buying into a Vancouver mountain, and Canadian naivete is an inadequate response

The ski slopes of Grouse Mountain overlook the city of Vancouver below. Photo: Ian Young

( L to R)Zhang Hongwei, Vice-chairman of China Minsheng Banking Corporation, Dong Wenbiao, chairman of China Minsheng Banking Corporation Ltd. and Paul Chow Man-yiu, chief executive of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited on toast during China Minsheng Banking Corporation listing debut at The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong, Central. 26NOV09

Young members of the Communist Party Committee of China Minsheng Investment Group, on an excursion. Photo: CMIG

A Vancouver firm offers clients ‘new identities’. Its customers have included Chinese criminals

Kuang Wan Fang is escorted away at Changle Airport in Fuzhou on September 24, 2015, after arriving from the US on a forced repatriation flight. Vancouver firm Amicus International has claimed Kuang is a client whom it helped obtain Spanish citizenship while imprisoned in the US. Photo: Xinhua

This image may be republished, A LinkedIn profile associated with Amicus International Consulting. The photograph has been anonymised by the South China Morning Post as the identity of the man is unknown. Photo: LinkedIn

The logo for Amicus International Consulting. The company's name is Latin for friend.

Kuang Wanfang (C), an economic crime suspect, is escorted at the Changle Airport in Fuzhou, southeast China's Fujian Province, Sept. 24, 2015. The woman, who fled to the U.S. in 2001, is suspected of taking part in corruption and bribery, and was repatriated to China on Thursday thanks to close cooperation between Chinese authorities and their U.S. counterparts. The move followed the forced repatriation of Yang Jinjun, one of China's most wanted economic fugitives, from the U.S. on September 18. (Xinhua/Yin Gang)

Warning, low res image! This image may be republished, A C$3.56 million mansion at 6620 Mang Road, Richmond, BC, that was purchased by Chinese fraudsters involved in the theft of US$485 million from the Bank of China. Two other houses were purchased nearby. Photo: BC Assessment

David and Goliath: a priceless Vancouver academic retires, after 45 years grappling with unaffordability

UBC geography professor David Ley has had a front-row seat to the epic transformation of a city

David Ley and wife Sandy Ley in Vancouver in 1974. Photo: Sandy Ley

The SCMP's Ian Young (left) with academics Andy Yan and David Ley, after a Vancouver forum on housing unaffordability in 2016. Photo: Ian Young

David Ley in snowy Vancouver in 1972. Photo: Sandy Ley

A bulldozer-blocking anti-high-rise protest in the Vancouver neighbourhood of Kitsilano in 1974. Among the attendees, wearing a tie, is a city-paid community organiser. Photo: David Ley

Widow Edna Shakel is evicted from her home in a rooming house in Fairview, Vancouver, in December 1972, to make way for a new condo development. Photo: David Ley

A home is demolished in 1974 on the 2400 block of West 3rd St in Kitsilano. 100 families were evicted from lower-cost rental housing to make way for a high-rise condo project. Photo: David Ley

Vancouver's unaffordability has skyrocketed in recent years, it's rate of increase far outstripping cities such as Sydney and San Francisco, and perhaps matched only by Hong Kong (HK data shown here is incomplete). Photo: SCMP Graphic

UBC geography professor David Ley, outside the department (left), and at Land's End in England in 1973. Photos: Ian Young / Sandy Ley

News

World

United States & Canada

Opinion

Blogs

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Column

The Hongcouver

.css-1m2rp1p{color:#34b8b5;}The Hongcouver | A Chinese policy instrument is buying into a Vancouver mountain, and Canadian naivete is an inadequate response

The Hongcouver | A Chinese policy instrument is buying into a Vancouver mountain, and Canadian naivete is an inadequate response