HNA was once China’s biggest dealmaker. Now it faces bankruptcy.

Its lenders are pushing for bankruptcy. Its chairman and co-founder has been quietly stripped of power. Nearly $10b of its money has been embezzled. HNA Group, the vast Chinese conglomerate that threw tens of billions of dollars at trophy businesses around the world, is nearing the biggest corporate collapse in recent Chinese history. Its dismantling is an extraordinary turn of events for the company that began as a regional airline in China’s southern province of Hainan and grew to own large stakes in Hilton Hotels, Deutsche Bank, Virgin Australia and others. At its height, HNA employed 400,000 people around the world. For China’s leadership, HNA is now a cautionary tale. Its story offers a glimpse of how Beijing treats its most powerful entrepreneurs. China has been taking a firmer grip on the economy, and regulators have recently circled in on another empire — that of China’s most famous billionaire, Jack Ma. HNA was once the face of modern corporate China, a leader in the first wave of private Chinese companies with political backing to make large global acquisitions. Its propensity to load up on borrowed money to buy stakes in global household names was expensive and risky, seemingly daring regulators in Beijing and around the world to bring it to heel. As HNA’s creditors wait for a Chinese court to approve their request for bankruptcy and restructuring, questions are being raised about the scale of the conglomerate’s problems. It has $200b of debts it cannot pay off, and those who are owed money will have to sift through dozens, possibly hundreds, of its subsidiaries, said Michelle Luo, a bankruptcy lawyer at Hui Ye law firm.<br/>