After MG Rover yesterday denied any problems with a proposed joint venture with Brilliance China Automotive, and BMW said it was proceeding with theirs, the Financial Times (FT) today reported that “several” senior Chinese executives are being investigated for suspected asset stripping among the group’s widespread network of subsidiaries.

Citing industry insiders and Chinese officials, the FT said Yang Rong, the chairman and a former central bank official, who managed Brilliance’s New York stock exchange listing in 1992 and was last year named by Forbes magazine as China’s third-richest man, was one of the executives under investigation.

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Insiders told the FT that about five other company executives were also being questioned and that officers from the ministry of state security were involved.

Such an inquiry into “economic irregularities” can take months, the FT said, adding that it was not clear if the suspected stripping of state assets within Brilliance was directly related to Yang or took place without his knowledge.

Two mid-ranking executives Brilliance executives told the newspaper that Yang was not in trouble with the law, but acknowledged that there were “many problems” related to Brilliance’s complicated share structure that needed to be sorted out.