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HNA Group make a regulatory filing to the Australian Securities Exchange

2018/4/24

HNA Group has revealed it did not fully disclose companies connected to the stake it holds in Virgin Australia, adding to a growing list of gaps or discrepancies in information regarding the ownership structure of the Chinese conglomerate.

In a regulatory filing to the Australian Securities Exchange this week, the Hainan-based company submitted an updated notice of initial substantial shareholders, listing a number of entities it said were not included in the original regulatory filing but that ��nonetheless hold a relevant interest�� in Australia��s second-largest airline.

It was unclear what prompted the disclosure, which came three weeks after regulators in New Zealand barred HNA from taking over a local finance company.

HNA originally listed the entities that directly owned the Virgin stake. It said in the filing that as a result of an ��oversight�� it had incorrectly omitted ��sister companies�� of those entities that are deemed to have a relevant interest according to Australian law.

The Chinese group, which started as a small regional airline but now holds large stakes in Hilton Worldwide and Deutsche Bank, agreed in 2016 to buy 20 per cent of Virgin for about $350m.

HNA kicked off a $40bn spree of global dealmaking three years ago, but in recent weeks has been forced to deal with fallout from incomplete or inaccurate disclosures to local regulators, including the latest admission to the Australian Stock Exchange.

In an interview with the Financial Times in July, HNA chief executive Adam Tan said that many of the shares in the company had been transferred to a US-based charity, clashing with a previous understanding of how the company was controlled.

The New York-based non-profit, called Hainan Cihang Charity Foundation, was listed in the ASX filing as part of HNA��s restructuring.

Mr Tan��s comments last year led some regulators to question previous HNA filings.

In November, citing the FT interview, Switzerland��s takeover watchdog said HNA had provided ��untrue or incomplete�� information regarding its ownership when it bought air services company Gategroup for SFr1.4bn in 2016.

Similar issues have arisen since. In December, New Zealand��s Overseas Investment Office blocked HNA��s proposed NZ$660m ($462m) takeover of UDC Finance, a unit of ANZ Bank, because it said it could not verify who controlled the Chinese company.

HNA Group make a regulatory filing to the Australian Securities Exchange

Anhui Guohe Investment Ltd