Mar. 15 (NBD) -- Leshi Internet Information & Technology Corp ("Leshi") released an announcement Wednesday night saying the company's chairman Sun Hongbin, who also acts as chairman of property developer Sunac China Holdings Limited ("Sunac"), has resigned from his position and quitted the board due to work adjustment and will no longer hold any position at Leshi. 

In fact, a previous media interview with Sun has showed signs of leaving. Sun told reporters that he didn't want to take the reins of Leshi and Sunac is a bigger business than Leshi. 

With regard to Sun's next work focus, a source with Sunac told NBD this is a topic on the company's agenda at the meeting set to be held Thursday. 

At the 18th Annual Conference of Yabuli China Entrepreneurs Forum 2018 held between February 27 and March 1 in Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, Sun said frankly that Sunac is a property company, and its primary business is real estate. If the company cannot run its main business well, there would be no money, let alone to fund other projects. 

Over the past year, Sunac has gone through a series of integration and acquisitions. 

The property developer increased its contract sales to 362 billion yuan (57.3 billion U.S. dollars) last year from 150.6 billion yuan (23.9 billion U.S. dollars), pushing its position in its segment from 7th to 4th. 

How to retain Sunac's 4th position or even push it into the top 3 is a tough challenge facing Sun. 

Before Sun's resignation, Leshi has made a big leap in stock price, with the growth achieved over the past 30 days hitting 64 percent based on the closing price at noon of Wednesday. 

The strong rise is said to be a result of the following factors: first, Leshi founder Jia Yueting is reportedly to produce electric cars in China; second, Jia shared photos of the FF91 under winter tests in Minnesota, the U.S.; third, the Growth Enterprise Index rebounded; and fourth, reports say some financially sound individual or consortium will likely take over part of Leshi.  

Email: lansuying@nbd.com.cn