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Wang Jian: China's HNA Group boss dies in Provence | |
(35 minutes later) | |
The co-founder and chairman of the giant Chinese conglomerate HNA Group has died in a fall in southern France, his company has confirmed. | |
Wang Jian, 57, "accidentally fell" in Provence, while on a business trip to France, a company statement said. | Wang Jian, 57, "accidentally fell" in Provence, while on a business trip to France, a company statement said. |
Police said he fell off a wall in the village of Bonnieux on Tuesday as he was having his picture taken. | |
Mr Wang helped turn HNA into one of the world's biggest companies, with assets in aviation, tourism and finance. | Mr Wang helped turn HNA into one of the world's biggest companies, with assets in aviation, tourism and finance. |
It has major stakes in Deutsche Bank, hotel chain Hilton and skyscrapers in London and employs more than 400,000 people worldwide. | |
HNA is currently in the process of selling down some of its international assets in a bid to reduce its domestic debt built up during a rapid expansion in recent years. | |
The company, which turned its website grey in a gesture of mourning, said it had lost an "exceptionally gifted leader and role model, whose vision and values will continue to be a beacon for all who had the good fortune to know him". | |
Mr Wang was reported to be among a group of tourists who were visiting Bonnieux, in the Vaucluse area of Provence. | |
"He stood on the edge of a sharp drop to get his family to take a picture of him and fell," a local police chief Hubert Meriaux said, according to Reuters news agency. | |
He said Mr Wang fell some 15m (50ft). | |
Police are not treating his death as suspicious. "Witness accounts point to a likely accident," Mr Meriaux also said, adding that a post-mortem examination will be carried out. |