Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Dear Shareholder: the woman from the Propaganda Department will now provide you information

Universal Travel Group - a Chinese company whose stock is now suspended - is no stranger to my readers.

If you need a background the initial post is much fun:

Travelling through China with the Universal Travel Group

Six months after I wrote that post (which suggested that the Universal Travel Group was complicated) the stock was suspended. The auditor (the fifth) resigned.

Normally this means that the company winds up trading on the pink-sheets and the stock goes asymptotically to zero.

Not this time though. Universal Travel seems determined to clean up its accounts and trade again on the New York Stock Exchange.

They have hired a new auditor.

They appointed a new Chief Operating Officer.

And they appointed a new board member.

This new board member is probably very good at spin - which will be useful as the company tries to persuade the New York Stock Exchange to reinstate its listing.

Here is her CV:

Ms. Moling Shang has served during her career in several jobs in the communications division of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC). From 1984 through 1996, Ms. Shang was the Chief of the Propaganda Department in the Information Bureau of the CPC's Central Committee. From 1996 to 1999, Ms. Shang served in numerous positions including Associate Director of News Agency for China Central Television and her previous role as the Chief ofPropaganda. Following her successful completion of her previous roles, Ms. Shang was appointed Deputy Chief of Propaganda in the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee where she was responsible for the Three Represents campaign from 1999 through 2002. From 2002 to 2010, she served as Deputy Chief of the Information Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Ms. Shang graduated from the Branch School of Peking University.

She is the former Deputy Chief of Propaganda of the Information Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

I am sure she will keep shareholders informed.



John

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

John, one of your funniest posts in a while, and they did all the work for you, how convenient!

Anonymous said...

Absolutely hilarious. If her spin is anything like the Three Represents campaign, all I can say is that her strategy is to dull everyone's senses into accepting her spin at face value. I start snoring every time CCTV starts to talk about the Three Represents. To this day I have no clue what is being represented. And I negotiate Chinese language contracts for a living, so it's not a language issue.

Daniel Y said...

Hilarious and insightful :)

To this day, I wonder if American corporate fraudsters learned from their Chinese counterparts, or visa versa. Then again, it could just be an unavoidable characteristic of the human condition.

I've been reading (on and off) about some of the more notorious frauds in the US around 2000, and it seems that similar red flags, and behavioral patterns are very much alive and well today.

It's unfortunate...but I guess it gives me something (worthwhile) to do in life; you might even say, it's my calling.

Anonymous said...

Hilarious!

But what's in it for her? Is there any cash left?

Anonymous said...

Corruption is an unavoidable Chinese characteristic. No civil society = widespread corruption. Corruption is a huge part of mainland China today, thank god the British taught a part of China how to behave.

Anonymous said...

Bad thoughts Mr Hempton! Western man cannot appreciate glorious achievements of CPC and of our esteemed Chinese enterprises. UTC is laudable organisation that will faciliate all your travel needs - as outlined in our new five year plan!

Ronald Brak said...

I sometimes wonder how much China has learned from her interaction with Britian. I'm curious because one of the main lessons was, when you have your opponent at a millitary disadvantage, crush them and force them to buy smack at gunpoint.

Anonymous said...

The Three Represents was more effective than Obama's Three Fixes, fix healthcare, fix energy, fix education.

But it seems UTA has not learned the lesson and is reaching for more fix bla.

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