The HongcouverWho’s really behind that Vancouver mountain? A boss at troubled Chinese investment giant CMIG

Laurence Liao Feng, CEO of CMIG International, is president of the firm that bought Grouse Mountain's ski slopes – despite claims CMIG is a ‘silent investor’

CMIG’s role raises questions about transparency at the firm, buckling under a debt crisis, and about the scrutiny Chinese investment gets in Canada

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Laurence Liao Feng, CEO of CMIG International, is also the president of CM (Canada) Asset Management, the firm that bought Vancouver's iconic Grouse Mountain ski hill – in spite of claims that CMIG was a silent investor. Photo Montage: SCMP Graphic / CMIG / Grouse Mountain

Published: 3:04am, 1 May 2019Updated: 1:03pm, 2 May 2019

When Kenny Zou appeared before Canadian media in 2017, he was adamant about the new buyer of Vancouver’s Grouse Mountain, the iconic ski hill that looms over the city, its floodlit slopes a gleaming beacon at night: CM (Canada) Asset Management was a “completely Canadian company through and through”.

Yes, Chinese investment giant China Mingsheng Investment Group (CMIG) was a 40 per cent minority shareholder – but it would be a “silent” investor, he pledged, stamping down on reports that Grouse was under Chinese management.

Zou, a director of CM Canada, was an unlikely frontman for the high-profile sale.

Just three years earlier, the baby-faced businessman had been among classmates at USC Price, where he was known as Kang Yu Canning Zou, doing a masters in public policy.

Now he was the public face of a reported C$200 million (US$149.4 million) deal involving one of Vancouver’s most beloved assets, 500 hectares (1,235 acres) of prized freehold land, and a Chinese investment vehicle whose creation was ordered by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang himself.