One day they were there, the next they were not. On Monday, China retired the heads of two of its three state-owned oil companies and shuffled the third into a new job, in a game of musical chairs supervised by the ruling Communist party.
The reshuffle at the top of Sinopec, China National Petroleum Corp and Cnooc is a reminder to western investors that many of China’s biggest companies are an integral part of the state, and therefore it is difficult to predict these groups’ fortunes by the quality of their management.
Over the past decade, leaders of state-owned enterprises in banking, insurance and telecoms have suddenly swapped places, and few have blinked an eye.