Beijing Man’s $18 Billion Donation to New York Charity Raises Eyebrows

A Beijing man’s donation of an $18 billion stake in a secretive Chinese conglomerate to a private anti-poverty foundation in New York is raising questions about the generous gift. It is not clear how the donor, a little-known thirtysomething named Guan Jun, came to acquire the 29 percent stake in HNA Group of China—the single largest investor in the U.S. last year—but the contribution puts him on par with donors like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Adam Tan, HNA’s chief executive, fueled further confusion when he told the Financial Times this week that Guan never really owned the stake but “had just held the stake for us.” The donation to Hainan Cihang Charity Foundation, which runs a variety of anti-poverty programs, has renewed questions about HNA’s murky ownership structure. The company has had ties severed with at least one U.S. bank over its lack of transparency. White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, however, has previously hailed HNA as “one of the more magnificent conglomerates coming out of China,” The New York Times reports. Scaramucci announced in January that he would sell his stake in SkyBridge to a consortium led by RON Transatlantic and HNA Capital, an arm of HNA Group, according to the Times.