Investors cheered news that Wen Yunsong, the son of Premier Wen Jiabao, has been named chairman of state-owned China Satellite Communications Corp, by sending the share price of its Hong Kong-listed unit Hong Kong APT Satellite up 44 per cent since Monday.
Yesterday, shares in the company, which operates satellite telecommunication systems, closed on the Hong Kong stock exchange at HK$2.24 each. Brokers said retail investors, making a bet in a bullish market, were behind the rise.
Wen, also known as Winston Wen, co-founded a private-equity fund in Beijing named New Horizon Capital in 2005, and was later tapped to take a senior role at China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASTC), the main contractor for the nation's space programme. He was named chairman of China Satcom last week, marking one of the latest so-called princelings to be appointed to influential corporate positions.
China Satcom, acquired by CASTC in 2009, is one of the six operators in the mainland's sensitive telecoms industry.
While the offspring of mainland government leaders in the 1980s or before might have chosen political roles, members of the younger generation migrated to business.
Among them, the eldest son of former president Jiang Zemin, Jiang Mianheng, was a board member of China NetCom, which was later acquired by China Unicom.