Shares of China’s second-biggest automaker BYD have fallen after authorities launched an investigation into claims one of the company’s factories was responsible for harmful pollutants that were causing respiratory problems in children near the plant.
Investors had poured into BYD, backed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, after blockbuster first-quarter results. But following the announcement of the pollution probe over the weekend, its Shenzhen-listed shares closed down 3.86 per cent on Monday.
On Saturday evening about 100 local residents protested outside BYD’s Changsha factory, a city known for its auto industry in central China’s Hunan province, and accused the company of releasing harmful emissions. City authorities announced an investigation late on Sunday, according to a post on the Communist party committee’s Weibo account.