On the evening of September 18, a public announcement from Wuhan Sante Cableway Group Co.,Ltd. (002159.SZ) pushed the "Dangdai Group" and its founder Ai Luming back into the spotlight once again.
The announcement showed that due to failure to timely disclose non-operating fund occupation by related parties and major omissions in its 2019 and 2020 annual reports, Sante Cableway received an Administrative Penalty Decision issued by the Hubei Securities Regulatory Bureau. The company was warned and fined 10.5 million yuan; its former actual controller Ai Luming was fined 11 million yuan and banned from the securities market for life; four then-serving senior executives were fined a combined 11.4 million yuan.
The "Dangdai Group" once spanned pharmaceuticals, finance, and cultural tourism. Ai Luming was its founder and former chairman. At its peak, its assets exceeded 100 billion yuan, and listed companies such as Sante Cableway and Humanwell Healthcare(Group)Co.,Ltd. (600079.SH, now ST Humanwell) were all within its domain.
This latest regulatory penalty against Ai Luming came just over two months after he was reported to have been criminally detained by the Wuhan Public Security Bureau on suspicion of the crime of illegally absorbing public deposits.
The fine closes an old account, but the hole in the "Dangdai Group" has not yet been filled. On the books of Hubei Tiangan Asset Management Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "Tiangan Asset Management"), the core platform of the group's financial segment, overdue debts totaling 3.505 billion yuan involve institutions including Wuhan Rural Commercial Bank, Western Trust, and the Hubei Charity Federation.
After Ai Luming Was Criminally Detained on Suspicion of Illegal Absorption, He Was Banned for Life from the Market Over the Sante Cableway Case
In August 2026, lawyer Lan He published an article titled "Record of Meeting the 100-Billion Tycoon Ai Luming" on his real-name Weibo account, stating that on July 8, 2026, Ai Luming was criminally detained by the Wuhan Public Security Bureau on suspicion of illegally absorbing public deposits and was held at the Wuhan No. 2 Detention Center. Lan He said he was Ai Luming's defense lawyer, but since July 23 he had been blocked twice from meeting Ai Luming. However, the lawyer has deleted the related article.
A person familiar with the matter also told Yicai that Ai Luming was taken away for investigation in early July 2026, possibly involving a financial institution.
It is understood that punishment for the crime of illegally absorbing public deposits is based on Article 176 of the Criminal Law and is divided into three tiers: for ordinary circumstances, fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention, plus or solely a fine; for huge amounts or other serious circumstances, fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than ten years, plus a fine; for especially huge amounts or other especially serious circumstances, fixed-term imprisonment of not less than ten years, plus a fine.
Ai Luming was born in 1957 and graduated with a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Wuhan University, later obtaining a doctorate in economics. In 1988, he resigned from his job at the Party School of the Hubei Provincial Committee and, together with six Wuhan University alumni, pooled 2,000 yuan to found the Wuhan Hongshan District Dangdai Biochemical Technology Research Institute, the predecessor of Dangdai Group.
Over the following three decades, Ai Luming built the "Dangdai Group" spanning pharmaceuticals, cultural tourism, film and television, and finance: controlling Humanwell Healthcare, Sante Cableway, and Dangdai Mingcheng (now ST Mingcheng). At its peak, the group's total assets exceeded 100 billion yuan, and it was selected as one of China's top 500 private enterprises. In 2020, he ranked 594th on the Hurun Rich List with 10 billion yuan in wealth.
The turning point came in 2021. The debt crisis of Dangdai Group erupted. In April 2022, its bond "19 Han Dang Ke MTN001" defaulted substantively, and risks fell like dominoes. Over the following three years, regulatory penalties landed intensively.
At the end of 2025, due to the information disclosure violation case of Humanwell Healthcare, Dangdai Group was found to have cumulatively occupied 12.785 billion yuan of listed company funds on a non-operating basis from 2020 to 2022. Humanwell Healthcare was fined 8.5 million yuan, Dangdai Group was fined 9 million yuan, and Ai Luming was fined 3.9 million yuan and banned from the securities market for seven years; Humanwell Healthcare was subject to other risk warning starting December 16, 2025, and its securities abbreviation was changed to "ST Humanwell."
On July 6, 2026, Ai Luming was fined 5 million yuan by the Hubei Securities Regulatory Bureau and banned from the securities market for life for abusing shareholder rights, illegally obtaining financing, and failing to disclose related-party transactions and fund occupation matters in accordance with the law.
Then came the Sante Cableway case on September 18, 2026. The penalty document showed that from 2019 to 2022, Sante Cableway transferred funds at the request of its indirect controlling shareholder Dangdai Group, forming non-operating fund occupation by related parties, with a cumulative amount of about 4.202 billion yuan and a maximum occupied balance of 505 million yuan. Among this, the amount in 2019 was 1.423 billion yuan, accounting for 133.49% of net assets that year.
These matters were neither disclosed in a timely manner nor mentioned at all in the 2019 and 2020 annual reports. It was not until April 2022 that the occupied funds and interest were fully repaid. The Hubei Securities Regulatory Bureau determined that Ai Luming instructed the listed company to engage in the illegal acts involved in the case, with "vicious conduct and serious illegal circumstances." Combined with his previous ban record, it ultimately imposed a lifetime securities market ban.
The trigger for the debt of the "Dangdai Group" becoming visible was the concentrated exposure of illegal fundraising risks. According to Caixin, in early 2022, targeted financing products listed and sold to retail investors by a company under Dangdai Group on the Wuhan Yangtze River Crowdfunding Financial Exchange Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "Changzhongsuo") defaulted across the board, prompting many investors to report the matter.
Changzhongsuo was established in 2015. At the time of establishment, its shareholders included Wuhan Optics Valley United Property Rights Exchange, Wuhan Optics Valley Technology Finance Development Co., Ltd., and other local state-owned platforms in Wuhan, as well as Hubei Dezhong Capital Management Co., Ltd. In 2017, some early shareholders transferred most of their equity, and Wuhan Tianying Investment Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "Tianying Investment"), under Dangdai Group, took over and became the largest shareholder of Changzhongsuo with a 30% stake.
According to a previous Caixin report, the targeted financing products issued by the "Dangdai Group" on Changzhongsuo had typical self-financing characteristics. The issuers were companies under the "Dangdai Group," the underlying assets were empty, and Dangdai Group or its related parties provided guarantees. These products were previously sold externally through Changzhongsuo and Wuhan Zhexin Investment Management Co., Ltd., which was controlled by the "Dangdai Group." The final confirmed scale was about 5.7 billion yuan, involving nearly 4,000 investors across various regions. A special task force established by the local Wuhan government has coordinated the handling.
Tiangan Asset Management's 3.5 Billion Yuan Debt Overdue Drags Down Wuhan Rural Commercial Bank and Western Trust
Amid the turmoil, as the largest shareholder of Changzhongsuo, Wuhan Tianying Investment Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "Tianying Investment") has also been placed under investigation. Tianying Investment announced that due to suspected information disclosure violations, Tianying Investment, bond guarantor Dangdai Group, and important subsidiary Tiangan Asset Management simultaneously received a Case Filing Notice from the China Securities Regulatory Commission on July 2.
Yu Fenghui, a specially invited researcher at the China Financial Think Tank, believes that although the investigations into Dangdai Group and its affiliated companies appear independent on the surface, deeper analysis shows that the core node lies in systemic problems in the company's governance structure and information disclosure mechanism. From Humanwell Healthcare to the current Tianying Investment and Tiangan Asset Management, the common feature is that these companies failed to meet regulatory standards in disclosing major matters. This indicates that in the operating model of the "Dangdai Group," there is insufficient understanding of laws and regulations and inadequate implementation, which is the fundamental reason for repeated investigations.
Tianying Investment was established in November 2012 and focuses on investment and asset management in the financial and quasi-financial industries. Its legal representative is Ai Luming, and its registered capital is about 7.259 billion yuan. Dangdai Group holds about 40.5% of Tianying Investment's equity and is its controlling shareholder.
Tiangan Asset Management is a subsidiary of Tianying Investment. It was established in December 2016 and was approved in April 2017 to become the second local asset management company (AMC) in Hubei Province, with registered capital of about 2.722 billion yuan. Its main business includes batch acquisition and disposal of non-performing assets of financial enterprises within Hubei Province, equity investment, debt investment, and asset mergers and reorganizations.
However, as an institution that was supposed to acquire and dispose of others' bad debts, Tiangan Asset Management has itself fallen into a debt crisis and has also affected financial institutions such as Wuhan Rural Commercial Bank and Western Trust.
In December 2017, Tiangan Asset Management borrowed 1.2 billion yuan from the Optics Valley Branch of Wuhan Rural Commercial Bank at an interest rate of 6% for a term of three years, for the purpose of non-performing asset operations. On the maturity date in December 2020, Tiangan Asset Management renewed 1.19 billion yuan through a "borrow new to repay old" method, extending it to December 2022. After that, the debt entered a cycle of continuous extensions: in December 2022, the balance was 1.165 billion yuan and it was extended for one year for the first time; in December 2023, the balance was 1.155 billion yuan and it was extended for another year, pushing the maturity date to December 17, 2024.
However, after the extension expired, the 1.15 billion yuan principal could not be repaid, and interest also stopped being paid starting July 21, 2024. From borrowing in 2017 to default in 2024, actual repayment over seven years was less than 100 million yuan. The two extensions were essentially using time to buy space, but project disposal never generated enough cash flow. Ultimately, debt pressure erupted in a concentrated manner. This loan originally used for "non-performing asset operations" became a non-performing asset of the bank itself.
As of the end of 2025, Wuhan Rural Commercial Bank had total loans of 283.674 billion yuan, of which the non-performing loan balance was 6.194 billion yuan, accounting for 2.18%; the proportion of loans overdue by more than 90 days was about 181.15%, meaning that a large number of loans overdue for more than three months had not been classified as non-performing. In addition, in 2025 the bank substantially increased provision charges. In 2025, the bank's credit and other asset impairment losses reached 4.312 billion yuan, up 16.4% year on year, of which "impairment losses on loans and advances" were 4.428 billion yuan, up 21.6% year on year.
Western Trust's situation is equally awkward. Its overdue amount at Tiangan Asset Management is as high as 1.975 billion yuan, more than 800 million yuan more than Wuhan Rural Commercial Bank's 1.15 billion yuan. In addition, Tiangan Asset Management also borrowed 380 million yuan from the Hubei Charity Federation. As of the end of 2024, Tiangan Asset Management's total debt of 3.505 billion yuan was all overdue.
Entering 2026, debt disputes are still spreading to more financial institutions. In August 2026, due to failure to fulfill obligations determined by effective legal documents, Tiangan Asset Management and its legal representative Hu Ying were restricted from high consumption by the Wuhan Intermediate People's Court. The applicant for enforcement was Zhongrong Life Insurance Co., Ltd., meaning that in addition to banks and trusts, insurance funds have also been drawn in.
Loss of 5.896 Billion Yuan in 2025, Tianying Asset Management May Undergo Debt Restructuring
From a performance perspective, the operating conditions of Tianying Investment and Tiangan Asset Management are already unfavorable. According to Tianying Investment's 2025 audit report, Tianying Investment has continued to lose money over the past three years. From 2023 to 2025, losses were 14.8687 million yuan, 4.827 billion yuan, and 2.151 billion yuan, respectively, with cumulative losses of 6.993 billion yuan over the three years. In 2025, Tianying Investment basically stopped operating, and its operating revenue of 1.7365 million yuan all came from its subsidiary Tianying Asset Management. Tianying Asset Management lost 5.896 billion yuan in 2025.
On September 12, 2025, "20 Tiangan 01" issued by Tiangan Asset Management matured, and the 450 million yuan principal and 84.5137 million yuan interest failed to be paid on time, totaling about 534.5 million yuan and constituting a substantive default. This bond was originally guaranteed by Tianying Investment and Dangdai Group, but when support was truly needed, one had already defaulted itself, and the other had entered reorganization proceedings.
In 2025, within the scope of Tianying Investment's consolidated statements, the balance of interest-bearing debt was 7.311 billion yuan, down 0.95% year on year, of which 5.139 billion yuan was overdue and 2.009 billion yuan was due within one year.
According to Tianying Investment's bond report, it issued three bonds in total: H20 Tianying 1, H20 Tianying 2, and H20 Tianying 3. As of the end of 2025, their balances were 450 million yuan, 100 million yuan, and 400 million yuan, respectively, all with an interest rate of 6.8%. Interest was payable annually, with principal repaid in a lump sum at maturity. H20 Tianying 1 and H20 Tianying 3 failed to repay principal on time after maturity and constituted substantive defaults.
Tianying Investment stated that Tiangan Asset Management has overdue bank loans and is involved in multiple lawsuits, and there is significant uncertainty in the progress of debt resolution. In the future, it may separately bring in strategic investors to revitalize the business or conduct debt restructuring. Debt restructuring may cause the company to lose control over Tiangan Asset Management and generate significant investment losses.
As for Dangdai Group, it entered bankruptcy reorganization proceedings in 2024 due to liabilities of 80.6 billion yuan. At the end of September that year, the court accepted Dangdai Group's reorganization. In January 2025, Humanwell Healthcare announced that China Merchants Venture would participate in Dangdai Group's reorganization, planning to invest 11.8 billion yuan and, in three steps, control the voting rights of 23.7% of Humanwell Healthcare shares held by Dangdai Group. In June 2025, Dangdai Group's shareholder changed to Guotong Trust (holding shares on behalf of related trust plans), and the actual controller changed from Ai Luming to no actual controller.
As Ai Luming was reported to have been criminally detained on suspicion of illegal absorption and a lifetime market ban took effect, Dangdai Group changed to having no actual controller and advanced reorganization. The chess game of the "Dangdai Group" has gradually settled. However, with its own operations halted and major shareholder Tianying Investment losing money for years, resolving Tiangan Asset Management's 3.5 billion yuan overdue debt through internal funding injections seems unrealistic. Still, its license as Hubei's second local AMC retains scarce value. If it can bring in strategic investors or package and dispose of non-performing assets, a comeback is not entirely impossible.
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