Leeco Founder’s Assets Frozen

Cash-strapped the founder of Chinese Internet giant Leeco, who stepped down from the position of company chairman of the board of directors in June, is facing another blow. On July 3, 1.24 billion yuan ($183 million) in assets belonging to Jia and three of the company’s affiliated companies were frozen by the Shanghai High People’s Court.

The court made the ruling after a China Merchants Bank branch applied for a property preservation order in June to block their assets as Leeco failed to pay the interest due on their bank loans to fund its smartphone business.

Leeco has been wrestling with a financial squeeze since last November, with Jia admitting publicly that the expansion into smartphone, automobile, cloud services and Internet finance was a step too far.