Ren Jianxin has participated in many large-scale acquisitions in the international capital market.
On May 11th, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission reported that Ren Jianxin, former Party Secretary and Chairman of China National Chemical Corporation Limited, and Yang Xingqiang, former Deputy Party Secretary and General Manager, are suspected of serious violations of discipline and law. They are currently undergoing disciplinary review and investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission stationed at the State owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council and the Zhejiang Provincial Supervisory Commission.
Ren Jianxin, currently 66 years old (born in January 1958), is from Lanzhou, Gansu. He graduated from the Mechanical Engineering major of Central Radio and Television University and the Enterprise Management major of Lanzhou University’s Department of Economics. He is a professor level senior engineer and started working in June 1974.
According to public information, since December 1975, Ren Jianxin has been working as a lathe worker, fitter, and file manager at the Lanzhou Chemical Machinery Research Institute of the Ministry of Chemical Industry; From 1984 to 1989, he served as the manager and party branch secretary of the Chemical Cleaning General Company of the Chemical Machinery Research Institute of the Ministry of Chemical Industry; Since 1989, he has served as the General Manager and Party Secretary of Blue Star Chemical Cleaning Group Company; In 2001, he served as the General Manager and Party Secretary of China Blue Star (Group) Corporation; Since 2004, he has served as the General Manager of China National Chemical Corporation (ChemChina); In December 2014, he was appointed as the Chairman and Party Secretary of China National Chemical Corporation. In March 2018, Ren Jianxin was appointed as the Chairman and Party Secretary of the restructured China National Chemical Corporation (ChemChina) until his retirement in June of the same year.
After Ren Jianxin was promoted to the position of Chairman of China National Chemical Corporation, he turned his attention to overseas and successively acquired leading companies in the industry such as Andoma and Pirelli. At the beginning of 2015, Ren Jianxin led China National Chemical Corporation to issue a takeover bid to Swiss agricultural and chemical giant Syngenta (referred to as “Swiss Syngenta”), with a total acquisition price of 43 billion US dollars, which was the largest overseas merger and acquisition transaction by a Chinese company up to that time.
In January 2018, ChemChina completed its 100% equity acquisition of Swiss Syngenta, thus ranking among the top tier in the global agrochemical industry. However, at the same time, the debt scale of China National Chemical Corporation has sharply increased, with an annual compound growth rate of over 40% from 2016 to 2018. As of the end of that year, the company’s total liabilities amounted to 605.882 billion yuan.