A court in Urumqi ordered the bankruptcy of Xinjiang Securities Co, one of the oldest and largest stock brokerages in China's western regions, after its chairman and five other senior executives were convicted of embezzlement.

Court documents showed that the company's liability amounted to 1.69 billion yuan as of Feb 21, 2008 against assets of 423 million yuan.

The court found Gao Hu, Xinjiang Securities' chairman, and the other five executives illegally accepted about 18.2 billion yuan of deposit between 1997 and 2005 from the public. About 1.1 billion yuan of funds were found missing.

The company's business license was withdrawn by the securities regulator in November 2006 and the company filed a bankruptcy petition in August 2007.

(China Daily March 6, 2009)