SHANGHAI police have detained property tycoon and philanthropist Zhou Xiaodi for allegedly hiring a hitman to murder a shareholder in his company, Caijing magazine reported on its Web site Saturday.

Zhou, 52, is chairman of the Shanghai-based Zhou (Group), which has diverse business interests ranging from hospitals to real estate.

The report said that Zhou hired a hitman more than a week ago to kill minority shareholder Yin Minghua to retain his grip on his holding company, New Century Yide Real Estate Development. Yin survived, but suffered severe brain injuries.

"Yin is severely injured...even if his life is saved, he is likely to suffer from severe brain damage," Caijing quoted a lawyer acting for Yin as saying.

The magazine said Shanghai police, who detained Zhou last week, were investigating but did not provide details.

New Century has the development rights to about 170 hectares of land in Sanlin, an area expected to have a market value of up to 20 billion yuan (US$2.69 billion) by 2010 because of its proximity to the Shanghai Expo.

As head of Shanghai Xizi Real Estate, Yin had a 20-percent stake in New Century but he has had no management role in the company for the past six years. The report also said Zhou allegedly siphoned off large amounts of cash from New Century to expand his own businesses and repeatedly signed cooperative agreements without informing other shareholders.

Zhou had been honoured for his generous donations to health care and has been on China's Philanthropy List since 2003.

He is also a member of the Shanghai political consultative conference, a political advisory body.

The magazine reported that some Shanghai officials had ordered the case be "strictly dealt with."

But a spokeswoman said yesterday that she had heard nothing about it.

(SD-Agencies)