China Regulator Slams Leveraged Stock Acquirers as ‘Robbers’

China’s top securities regulator resorted to unusually harsh language to denounce leveraged acquisitions of shares in listed companies, as officials move to rein in financial risks associated with a surge in dealmaking.

China Securities Regulatory Commission Chairman Liu Shiyu also questioned the legitimacy of the funding sources at acquirers that he didn’t identify, saying their behavior challenges the nation’s rules, as well as their own professional ethics. Such acquisitions show “retrogress and decay in humanity and commercial morals, and is by no means financial innovation,” Liu, 55, said.

“By using improperly obtained money to conduct leveraged acquisitions, you’ve gone from strangers at the gate, to barbarians and eventually robbers of the industry, ” he said at a meeting of the Asset Management Association of China in Beijing on Saturday, a transcript of which was posted on the regulator’s website. “That’s not allowed.”