A woman who lives with him, Zhao Tingting, has a personal connection to the jailed billionaire, Mr. Xiao. She was once a top official at a company he co-founded, having business dealings with relative of China’s top leader, Xi Jinping.
Ms. Zhao, 43, no longer holds that position, and now teaches piano. When asked about Mr. Liu’s purchase of the Van Gogh painting, she replied: “Do you think our house is close to the price of that painting?”
She and Mr. Liu are “just ordinary little employees,” she said, with no connection to Tomorrow Group, a collection of companies controlled by the billionaire. “We have no right to make any decisions and no right to know anything.”
The pair appear to be “white gloves”, a term used in China to describe proxy shareholders in order to conceal the true owners of the company. Among the thousands of profiles that provide details about Team Tomorrow is a spreadsheet that lists dozens of such people. At least four foreign companies have been registered under Mr. Liu’s name.
Those companies are part of Mr. Xiao’s huge business. He showed promise early on, being admitted to China’s prestigious Peking University at the age of 14 and being a student leader during the 1989 Tiananmen protests. He sided with the government, single-mindedly. Loyalty made him one of the richest men in the country, taking control of banks, insurance companies and brokerages, as well as stakes in coal, cement and real estate.
Unlike many of the rude billionaires he has done business with, Mr. Xiao, now 51, prefers to operate in the shadows. to build a relationship for some crown princes of China. He settled into a quiet life at the Four Seasons, where a group of female bodyguards served his needs.
Why one of his lieutenants paid van Gogh is unclear. Mr. Wang, the producer, is one of the Leaderboard among the richest in China, although not as rich as Mr. Xiao.
