Sunac China chairman Sun Hongbin has officially been appointed as the new chairman of the listed arm of LeEco, the embattled Chinese tech group that is facing mounting debt and losses.
Sun, the Shanxi tycoon who poured 15 billion yuan (US$2.2 billion) to bail out LeEco early this year, has replaced the group’s founder, Jia Yueting, as chairman of the Shenzhen-listed Leshi Internet Information & Technology Corp.
Sun has been chosen to take the position in a board meeting held via teleconference on Friday afternoon, Leshi said in a statement, despite Sun’s disinterest in the role.
“Leshi is small business, while Sunac is a big business worth hundreds of billions of yuan,” Sun was quoted as saying in an interview last week with the mainland media, indicating his reluctance to lead the tech group.
On Wednesday, Sun inked a deal to spend 43.8 billion yuan to buy 13 tourism-related projects including theme parks from Wanda Group, in one of the largest property transactions in China.
