How Hunter Biden’s Firm Helped Secure Cobalt for the Chinese
How Hunter Biden’s Firm Helped Secure Cobalt for the Chinese
Turn back the clock to 2021 New York Times report. Biden family corruption didn't start yesterday. Read story here
The president’s son was part owner of a venture involved in the $3.8 billion purchase by a Chinese conglomerate of one of the world’s largest cobalt deposits. The metal is a key ingredient in batteries for electric vehicles.
An investment firm where Hunter Biden, the president’s son, was a founding board member helped facilitate a Chinese company’s purchase from an American company of one of the world’s richest cobalt mines, located in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Mr. Biden and two other Americans joined Chinese partners in establishing the firm in 2013, known as BHR and formally named Bohai Harvest RST (Shanghai) Equity Investment Fund Management Company.
The three Americans, all of whom served on the board, controlled 30 percent of BHR, a private equity firm registered in Shanghai that makes investments and then flips them for a profit. The rest of the company is owned or controlled by Chinese investors that include the Bank of China, according to records filed with Chinese regulators.
One of BHR’s early deals was to help finance an Australian coal-mining company controlled by a Chinese state-owned firm. It also assisted a subsidiary of a Chinese defense conglomerate in buying a Michigan auto parts maker.
The firm made one of its most successful investments in 2016, when it bought and later sold a stake in CATL, a fast-growing Chinese company that is now the world’s biggest maker of batteries for electric vehicles.
Race to the Future
The Times is examining the global transition away from oil and the scramble for resources that will power the clean energy economy.
Battery Recycling: Reusing lithium-ion batteries could lower costs for electrical cars in the future, but achieving that goal seems far away.
Solving a Shortage: A lithium mine in northern Quebec may hold the key to bringing down the price of electric vehicles.
Ocean Riches: Mining in the Pacific was meant to benefit poor countries, but a Canadian company was given access to sites with crucial metals.
Tesla’s Ambitions: A mine in the South Pacific is a key testing ground for the electric vehicle maker’s efforts to sustainably source minerals.
Global Rivalries: The competition for cobalt, a key ingredient in electric cars, has set off a power struggle between China and the U.S. in Congo.