Chairman At China Manufacturer Investing $916 Million In Ohio Out From Home Surveillance, Back At Office

Chinese police have ended their home surveillance of the billionaire chairman of a manufacturer planning to invest $916 million in Ohio, the company said in a stock filing in China today.

Yunnan Energy New Material, a China-headquartered supplier of lithium battery components, said Paul Lee had returned to work in “recent days.”

Lee and his brother Li Xiaohua, the company’s vice chairman, had been put under surveillance in November, according to an earlier company announcement.

Yunnan Energy said on Jan. 30 that Li was already back at the office. The announcements didn’t provide any details about the matter.

Lee, 65, a U.S. citizen who holds a degree from the University of Massachusetts, had an estimated fortune of $4 billion on the 2023 Forbes Billionaires List released last Tuesday. Li, his 61-year-old brother, is a China national with an estimated fortune worth $2.9 billion on the new Forbes list. Shenzhen-listed Yunnan Energy’s trade name is SEMCORP Advanced Materials Group.

SEMCORP said in May 2022 it will build a manufacturing facility in Sidney, Ohio, creating nearly 1,200 jobs with $73 million in annual payroll and $916 million in investment. The facility will make separator film, a key component in batteries for electric vehicles. (See announcement here.)

Lee said in a statement then: “The Sidney facility is one of the biggest investments in our company’s history because we know the United States is strongly committed to building the supply chains for EVs and energy storage here at home.”

Yunnan Energy’s clients include Panasonic, LG Chemical and Contemporary Amperex Technology, or CATL.

The company reported sales in 2022 rose by 58% from a year earlier to 12.6 billion yuan, or $1.8 billion; net profit increased by 47% to 4 billion yuan.

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