Eerie foreshadowing of Huang Guangyu's fate

If you follow China business news then you've probably heard or read about the arrest of Huang Guangyu, chairman of the huge Gome home appliance store chain and China's richest man. As Time's Austin Ramzy points out, being named on China's rich list is a widely known as an indicator of future misfortune. But particularly interesting in Huang's case is that this very situation was foreshadowed in an LA Times profile of him that ran two years ago with a prescient headline: "It helps to be 'rich silently' in polarized China".

The article, which is worth going back and rereading in light of current events, positions Huang as something of a wealthy everyman, not quite at ease with his amazing fortune. In retrospect one wonders how much of this was calculated positioning. It is not wholly flattering, although it's pretty positive. The standard, operatic Chinese entrepreurial story of a rise from penury through a hardscrabble start to spanning success. See also Zong Qinghou, Li Ka-shing, and so on.

Given that Huang is in the dock for alleged share manipulation, what really struck me about the LA Times profile was this:

On the backs of Wang’s business cards and those of all Gome
employees are Huang’s three cardinal rules: Do not accept gifts from
customers. Do not take kickbacks. Do not use your position for
personal gain.

Printed at the very bottom is a hotline number for people to
report employee misdeeds.

A touch of irony perhaps? It will be hard to know if the facts remain murky.

As for Gome, they are busy trying to distance themselves from their former Chairman and explaining that nothing that's happened has anything to do with the business. And in fact the looming recession and generally cutthroat nature of China's retail industry is likely to be their biggest problem this year.