Chinese Businessman Loses $14 Billion in 30 Minutes After Failing to Attend a Meeting

One of the biggest lessons I learned in poker is to not to dwell on your losses.

Li is the chairman of Hanergy Thin Film Power, a solar power equipment manufacturing company that’s headquartered in Beijing, China. The company had been doing well with a market cap of $40 billion but the company’s shares fell over 40% in the last 30 minutes of trading in the Hong Kong Stock exchange, according to Fortune. The shares were suspended by the local market regulator shortly after.

What caused such a dramatic crash? It was apparently because Li (the company’s biggest shareholder) failed to attend the company’s annual shareholder meeting. A spokesperson told The Financial Times that the chairman had “something to do.”

David Webb, a shareholder activist and founder of Webb-site.com, told Bloomberg:

“All directors of listed companies take part in setting the dates of their shareholder meetings, and they should attend. If a chairman of a mainland company did not show up in Hong Kong for the AGM, then it raises questions.”

The Hurun Report stated in February 2015 that Li was the richest man in China. According to Forbes, he had a net worth of $32.7 billion as of April 2015. While losing $14 billion sucks, don’t expect Li to be homeless any time soon.

Moral of the story: Attend your company’s shareholder meetings!

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