Five people who are still making an impact from behind bars.
BY JOSHUA E. KEATING | AUGUST 10, 2010
HUANG GUANGYU Country: China In jail since: 2008
Impact: Huang may be China's ultimate rags to riches to prison jumpsuit story. The 41-year-old high school dropout started out in business by selling radios out of a single market stall and eventually built Gome electronics into one of China's largest companies, making himself the country's richest man in the process.
All that seemed to come to an end when, as part of a crackdown on corporate corruption, the Chinese government made an example of Huang and sentenced him to 14 years in prison on charges of bribery and insider trading.
Huang formally stepped down as Gome's chairman in 2009 but has continued to exert his influence over the company nonetheless, fighting a battle for control against U.S. private-equity firm Bain Capital, which owns a 10 percent stake in the company. In August, 2009, Huang bought enough shares to allow him to retain a one-third stake in the company. Then in May of this year, shareholders affiliated with Huang voted out Bain's representatives on Gome's board of directors. They were reinstated a month later. Most recently, a holding company controlled by Huang recently called a shareholders meeting to cancel decisions made by the company.
Gome has now filed an additional insider-trading lawsuit against Huang, who is also facing charges from Hong Kong's top financial watchdog. The authorities certainly seem to have enough on Huang to keep him in jail for the next few decades, but if the past year is any indication, it will take more than prison to keep this tycoon away from the company he founded.
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