Yang Rong (businessman)

Yang Rong (Chinese: 仰融; born 1957), also known as Yung Yeung and Benjamin Yeung is an exiled Chinese tycoon. He was born in Anhui province in 1957. Only a year after the magazine Forbes proclaimed him China's third richest businessman in 2001, Yang fled to the US following a dispute with the Chinese government.

Famous for his close association with a Chinese microvan manufacturer, Yang has continued to be involved in the automotive industry since his flight to the US. There, his ventures have yet to achieve the same scale of success as those in his native China have done.

In the US, Yang has been involved with at least two businesses, Greentech Automotive and Hybrid Kinetic Motors. The latter is a hybrid vehicle company with an aim of manufacturing cars in Alabama, and the former planned to build all-electric vehicles in Mississippi. Hybrid Kinetic later dropped its Alabama plans due to a funding shortfall in 2009, and Yang has distanced himself from his other American venture, Greentech Automotive.

Yang, the founding chairman of Brilliance Auto, was involved with the company during the 1990s.

Some blame his immigration to the US on a failed bid to locate a production base in Ningbo. As Ningbo is near the rich coastal city of Shanghai, this was contrary to Chinese state policy encouraging economic growth in the poorer regions, and Yang incurred the wrath of the government of Liaoning in the attempt. In 2002 he was accused of embezzlement, and an arrest warrant was issued precipitating Yang's flight from the country.

While Yang was in control, Brilliance Auto made a number of IPOs. These included listing a subsidiary on the NYSE in 1992, the same subsidiary again on the in 1999, and that same year a different subsidiary on the .

...
Wikipedia