Private equity firm linked to Hunter Biden ‘worked against USA’S interests’
Company established by president’s son helped Chinese gain control of a cobalt mine, it is claimed
AN INVESTMENT firm linked to Hunter Biden helped a Chinese company to gain control of one of the world’s most valuable cobalt mines, according to The New York Times.
Mr Biden, son of the US president, was a co-founder of Bohai Harvest RST (BHR) Equity Investment Fund Management Company, based in Shanghai.
The company is said to have played a key role in a series of transactions that handed China Molybdenum, the world’s second-largest producer of cobalt, an 80 per cent stake in the Democratic Republic of the Congo mine.
As the deals were reportedly being negotiated, successive US administrations voiced alarm at Chinese dominance of the cobalt market, an element regarded as crucial to the world’s ability to transition from petrol and dieselpowered cars to electric vehicles.
At this month’s Cop26 summit in Glasgow more than 100 organisations including leading car makers, some US states and several governments signed a pledge to phase out internal combustion engines by 2035.
Although Joe Biden was not one of the signatories, he has promised that half the cars sold in the US in 2030 will be either electric or hybrid vehicles.
The alleged involvement of Hunter Biden in a business deal seen as contrary to Washington’s strategic interests is the latest controversy to engulf the president’s son. In the run-up to the presidential election, Donald Trump sought to make political capital out of Mr Biden’s presence on the board of Burisma Holdings, a company run by Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky.
It led to the former president facing impeachment by the House of Representatives for threatening to withhold military aid from Ukraine unless the country opened an investigation into Hunter Biden.
Mr Biden’s business career took off when he helped establish BHR in 2013. In 2016 the firm helped facilitate the transfer of a copper mine, owned by the American company FreeportMcmoran to China Molybdenum for $2.65billion. Freeport-mcmoran had been involved in the Congolese cobalt industry for decades, investing heavily in the country’s infrastructure.
However, the company reportedly ran into serious trouble in 2012, following a disastrous investment in oil. As a result, it was desperate to sell its stake in the Tenke Fungurume mine.
BHR facilitated the transaction in 2016 and two years later it also sold its stake in Lundin Mining of Canada to the Chinese. The New York Times claimed that the Chinese were the only viable bidders for the mine. Chris Clark, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, told the newspaper that his client no longer holds a direct or indirect stake in BHR.