Lin Maode

Lin Maode, born in October 1956, formerly served as Party secretary and chairman of Shenzhen Metro Group Co., Ltd. On October 13, 2017, Shenzhen Metro held a cadre meeting at which Lin Maode stepped down as Party secretary and chairman, succeeded by Xin Jie, then Party secretary and chairman of Tagen Group. An insider close to Shenzhen Metro told Guandian New Media that Lin Maode stepped down because he had reached retirement age.

Lin Maode was directly involved in the battle for control of Vanke. On the night of March 12, 2016, a set of photos of the “signing ceremony for the strategic cooperation memorandum between Shenzhen Metro and Vanke” circulated on social media, showing Lin Maode shaking hands with Wang Shi, then chairman of Vanke’s board; this was seen as the initial starting point of Shenzhen Metro becoming Vanke’s largest shareholder, and public opinion at the time called Shenzhen Metro Vanke’s “white knight.” On June 17, 2016, Vanke first announced its restructuring plan with Shenzhen Metro and convened a board meeting, where the plan was opposed by the three votes of major shareholder China Resources; the restructuring plan was ultimately passed amid a dispute over the vote count. In September 2016, speaking at a public event about the investment in this listed company, Lin Maode said he had made a “bet” with the other party, requiring it to maintain a dividend of one yuan per share each year; with a holding of more than 2 billion shares, this would yield about 2 billion yuan in cash flow annually. He also said the company had grown more than 100-fold over the past 20-plus years, and that if it merely doubled over the next ten years it would earn 50 billion yuan, and if it tripled it would earn 100 billion yuan, so the loans would have a source of repayment.

On 18 December 2016, Vanke announced the termination of its plan to issue shares to acquire assets from Shenzhen Metro. Less than a month later, China Resources transferred its Vanke A shares (about 15.31% of Vanke’s total share capital) to Shenzhen Metro; five months after that, Evergrande also sold its 1.553 billion Vanke A shares (14.07% of total share capital) to Shenzhen Metro. With the two transactions combined, Shenzhen Metro held 29.38% of Vanke, overtaking Baoneng to become Vanke’s largest shareholder. At Vanke’s 2016 shareholders’ meeting, Lin Maode publicly thanked China Resources for reaching agreement with Shenzhen Metro on the Vanke issue and supporting Vanke’s stable development, thanked Evergrande for its support in coordination and cooperation, and thanked Vanke’s second-largest shareholder Baoneng and its chairman Yao Zhenhua. He also clarified at the meeting that claims holding Shenzhen Metro responsible for Vanke’s bonus cuts had made Shenzhen Metro “take the blame”, and said that Vanke was already far ahead of its peers in “rail + property”, and that Shenzhen Metro would cooperate with Vanke across the board. That shareholders’ meeting elected Lin Maode vice chairman of Vanke’s board.

A document circulated online showed that at the end of September 2017 the Shenzhen State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission commended this matter and awarded Lin Maode 1 million yuan. The commission stated that Shenzhen Metro, following market-based and law-based principles, had taken over the combined 29.38% stake in Vanke held by China Resources and Evergrande and become its largest shareholder, which set an example for maintaining the healthy stability of the capital markets and financial system and supporting the real economy, and also helped the city’s state-owned assets achieve a breakthrough from zero in producing a Fortune Global 500 company. Lin Maode reportedly declined the bonus.

Lin Maode once said that Shenzhen Metro bore responsibility for Vanke’s development and would neither interfere nor participate in Vanke’s specific business. As a cornerstone shareholder, Shenzhen Metro put forward the “four supports”: support for Vanke’s mixed-ownership structure, its strategy as an urban supporting-services provider and its business partner mechanism, and support for Vanke’s management team in running operations and management according to established strategic goals, while deepening the “rail + property” development model.

According to reports, after stepping down as Party secretary and chairman of Shenzhen Metro in October 2017, Lin Maode would also step down as vice chairman of Vanke’s board.