One of the firms to sign Nicola Sturgeon’s controversial “Chinese deal” has failed to carry out any of its promised investments.
London-registered SinoFortone Group Ltd was one of two companies to sign a 2015 memorandum of understanding with the first minister.
That deal sparked widespread controversy because its other part was a subsidiary of China Railway Group or CRG, a business blacklisted by Norway’s oil fund amid concerns over corruption.
However, weekend reports have now revealed that SinoFortone Group has not followed through on a series of high-profile investment announcements, including speculation it would buy Liverpool FC.
The Sunday Times said the firm, fronted by 30-something Peter Zhang, had only made one investment: it bought the Home Counties pub where David Cameron and Chinese President Xi had a pint together in 2015. SinoFortone Group, which has not filed any accounts since its 2015 creation, bought the £2m venue with a loan from the Royal Bank of Scotland.
The Scottish memorandum of understanding, which entailed no commitments by either side, was signed by Dr Zhang and his associate Sir Richard Heygate on behalf of both SinoFortone Group and the CRG subsidiary.
Scottish officials were said to have been impressed by BBC stories and reassurances from UK counterparts about the businesses.
Sir Richard told the Sunday Times: “Peter believed he could create a private vehicle without having any capital himself and I just thought that was impossible.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel