The Billionaire Vanishes

What do you do when your most senior executive stops answering his phone? It's an experience Chinese companies are getting used to.

Over the past year, senior figures at China Minsheng Banking, China Aircraft Leasing, and the brokerages Founder Securities and Guotai Junan have all disappeared without initial explanation. Similar absences have afflicted the department-store chain Ningbo Zhongbai and the waste manager Dongjiang Environmental. Now it's the turn of China's own mini-Berkshire Hathaway, Fosun International.

Trading in Fosun, owner of investments in Club Med, Cirque de Soleil, and New York's Chase Manhattan Plaza building, was halted Friday after Guo Guangchang, the billionaire who co-founded the company with about $6,000 of capital during the 1990s, was reported as being missing. The company had "lost contact" with Guo, who modeled himself on Berkshire Chairman Warren Buffett, Caixin magazine reported.

Fosun is one of the most acquisitive non-state-owned Chinese companies, so Guo's sudden absence leaves a lot of plates spinning. There's about $2.2 billion of deals still pending, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. They include a $586 million offer for the Chinese film distributor Bona Film; a $476 million controlling stake in an Israeli insurer, Phoenix Holdings; and the $232 million takeover of German private bank Hauck & Aufhaeuser. Plus the tussle for BHF Kleinwort Benson: Fosun has offered $529 million to buy out shareholders in the Belgian wealth manager, but was last month trumped by a higher offer from the French investment bank Oddo.