The CEO of a Chinese live-streaming service, backed by Tencent, has become the latest executive to go missing in the country, as reported by the news channel. Tencent Holdings Ltd. is a Chinese multinational technology and entertainment conglomerate.
DouYu (DOYU) CEO Chen Shaojie has been unreachable in recent days. It also cited unconfirmed reports that Chen was being investigated and had been missing for nearly three weeks.
The 39-year-old CEO made his last public appearance in August when he spoke on the company’s quarterly earnings conference call with financial analysts, the report said.
The Chinese live streaming service was listed on the Nasdaq in 2019, where it raised about USD 775 million in one of the largest share offerings by a Chinese company on Wall Street that year.
DouYu, which translates to “fighting fish” in Chinese, is often compared to Amazon’s Twitch service. It hosts interactive live streams of video games on its desktop and mobile apps while letting users chat in real time and inviting them to watch other content created for its platform, as per the news channel.
The CEO’s unexplained absence comes as China continues an anti-corruption crackdown that has trapped top executives, particularly in the finance and tech sectors.
China’s top anti-corruption watchdog, in a brief statement on Saturday, said it was investigating Zhang Hongli, a former senior executive at the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), one of China’s “Big Four” lenders.
Zhang was “suspected of seriously violating rules and laws,” a phrase that is commonly used to refer to corruption, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said, without giving any further details.
Bao Fan, a star investment banker and tech dealmaker, was also caught up in the sweep. In May, Chinese state media reported that Bao had been in the custody of the anti-graft agency since his disappearance in February, as per the news channel.
In 2023, the commission has already investigated more than a dozen senior executives at the country’s most important financial institutions, according to a previous CNN analysis of statements posted on the CCDI’s website.