Chinese billionaire Wong Kwong Yu released on parole

Tong Tong AI Social

24/06/2020 14:06

BEIJING, June 24 (Reuters) - The founder of Chinese
electronics retail giant GOME Retail Holdings Ltd  0493.HK  has
been released on parole after spending the past 10 years in
prison, a Chinese court said on Wednesday.
    Wong Kwong Yu, also GOME's former chairman, was arrested in
2008 and jailed in 2010, after being sentenced to 14 years for
illegal business dealings, insider trading and corporate
bribery. Wong, who is also known as Huang Guangyu, was scheduled
to be released in February next year after his sentence was
shortened.    
    The Beijing No.1 Intermediate People's Court decided to
release him on parole until Feb. 16 next year, according to a
statement posted on the official Weibo account of the Beijing
high court. It gave no further details.
    GOME did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
    Shares in Hong Kong-listed GOME Retail had jumped 17.4%
after local media reported that he had been released earlier in
the day, while subsidiary GOME Finance Technology  0628.HK 
surged 47.3%.
    Wong, who built GOME Electronics into China's biggest
appliance retailer, was ranked by the Forbes Rich List as
China's richest man with a wealth of 18.1 billion yuan in 2006.
By 2019, he had dropped to 280th place on the list, which
estimated that his wealth had fallen to 9.4 billion yuan ($1.3
billion).
    Local media have reported that Wong had continued to
exchange ideas with GOME's company executives via letters during
his imprisonment.
    Like many brick-and-mortar retailers, GOME has been trying
to navigate the growing popularity of online shopping. Earlier
this year, GOME Retail announced that it had formed strategic
partnerships with and received investment from e-commerce
platforms Pinduoduo and JD.com.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2C7080  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nNDL3dHlyt
 ($1 = 7.0729 Chinese yuan renminbi)

 (Reporting by Sophie Yu and Brenda Goh; Editing by Alex
Richardson)
 ((Sophie.Yu@thomsonreuters.com; 861056692136;))