LeEco chairman, wife have assets frozen by Shanghai court: reports

A total of 1.24 billion yuan ($177 million) in assets owned by Le Holdings Co Chairman Jia Yueting and his wife as well as three subsidiaries were frozen last week, media reports said Monday.

An unidentified PR representative of the technology company said that he "had no knowledge of the matter" when reached by the Global Times on Monday.

The Shanghai High People's Court received an application for property preservation on June 26, and its ruling ordered a freeze on 1.237 billion yuan of assets owned by Jia and his wife and other three companies under Le Holdings Co, which is also known as LeEco, domestic news portal finance.qq.com reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The subsidiaries are Leview Mobile HK, Leshi Mobile Intelligent Information Technology (Beijing) Co and Leshi Holding (Beijing) Co, according to the report.

The report said that the Shanghai High People's Court also ordered a three-year freeze on all shares and dividends that Leshi Holding (Beijing) Co held in Guangzhou-based Dasheng Technology Corp.

Leshi Holding (Beijing) Co, which was founded by Jia in 2011, invested 80 million yuan in Dasheng and holds 40 percent of its shares, the finance.qq.com report said.

The asset-freeze application was filed in connection with debt owed by LeEco's smartphone business, 36kr.com reported Monday, citing an employee close to the matter. The person was quoted as saying that "we have enough assets to cover the debt and the company is closely communicating with some financial institutions to address relevant debt issues."

China Merchants Bank's Shanghai branch said that the bank sought court action because interest on Leview Mobile HK's loans was overdue and several calls for repayment didn't yield results, the 21st Century Business Herald reported Monday.

The business risk the bank has due to LeEco is under control and the bank might tackle relevant issues through friendly negotiations with the firm, the report said.

The Beijing News reported on Monday that the legal representative of Leshi Holding (Beijing) Co was changed on June 13 from Jia to Wu Meng, who worked as chairman of Le.com's supervisory board. Jia will continue to work as the executive director of the company, the report said.

Wu replaced Jia's elder sister Jia Yuefang to become general manager of the company.

LeEco's cash problems are "far worse than expected" and contrary to anticipation, the funds raised in recent months are not enough to help the Chinese technology conglomerate ride out the crunch, Jia was quoted as saying in a Reuters report on Wednesday.

LeEco announced in May that it would lay off more than 300 staff in its U.S. section.