JD.com CEO Returns Home After U.S. Sexual Misconduct Arrest

(Bloomberg) -- JD.com Inc.'s billionaire founder returned to China after his weekend arrest for alleged sexual misconduct in Minnesota, where local police are investigating the chief executive officer of one of the Asian country's largest internet corporations.

Liu Qiangdong, who uses the English name Richard, is a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota and was in Minneapolis for his studies, the college confirmed. The case involves a Chinese student at the school, according to the Financial Times and the Star-Tribune.

Liu was brought in at 11:32 p.m. Friday on an accusation of “criminal sexual conduct” and released just over 16 hours later, according to arrest records. Minneapolis Police Department spokesman John Elder declined to provide further details about the reasons for the arrest, but said authorities decided not to keep Liu in custody and haven't imposed any travel restrictions while conducting their investigation.

JD.com is China's largest e-commerce company after Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., backed by investors including social media titan Tencent Holdings Ltd., Walmart Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google. Liu, 45, has led the $45 billion business since its founding and controls the company through special voting rights.

“We are very much in the infancy of this investigation,” Elder said. Authorities may decide not to charge Liu at all, he added. “There are no travel restrictions on him at the moment and he's not charged with a crime at this time.”

The billionaire has since flown back to China. JD earlier said on its official Weibo social media account that U.S. police found no misconduct in their probe against Liu. It didn't explain how that assertion squared with the police statement about an ongoing investigation. In the Weibo post, the company had said Liu will continue a scheduled business trip.

Police haven't outlined the accusations against Liu, said his attorney Joseph Friedberg. The lawyer, who JD confirmed as representing the billionaire, said Liu was neither questioned nor told why he was under arrest. Police can hold a suspect for up to 48 hours without charges over a holiday weekend, he said. But Elder, the police spokesman, said it was “absolutely” standard practice to tell people what they were accused of when arrested.

“I find it to be preposterous,” he said of the claim that Liu had not been informed of accusations against him. “However, if there is a concern about the way our officers behaved we certainly would encourage them to exercise their client's right to file a complaint about it.”

Friedberg, who said Liu appeared confused during a brief meeting, couldn't confirm that the case involved a Chinese student at the university. Liu is registered as a student at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management in its Doctor of Business Administration program. Participants were in town from Aug. 26 through Saturday as part of their residency, a spokeswoman for the college said.

“I'm very confident that there will be no criminal charges,” Friedberg said. “They realized that this whole thing was ridiculous and they turned him loose. They didn't ask for his passport, they didn't ask for any bail.”

“You can take that as gospel,” he added. Elder said however that the lack of bail or travel restrictions had no bearing on the potential seriousness of the charge.

JD's ADRs won't trade in the U.S. until Tuesday because of the Labor Day holiday. Spreads on the company's dollar bonds widened at least three basis points Monday, according to Asia-based traders.

“Investors may treat the stock cautiously for the next short while as they wait to see how this issue is resolved,” said Mark Natkin, managing director of Beijing-based Marbridge Consulting. “But I suspect it will likely not come to much and that it won't have any major long-term impact on the stock.”

Earlier this year, a guest at a party Liu hosted in downtown Sydney was convicted of sexually assaulting a fellow guest after the event. There was no accusation of any misconduct by Liu. The billionaire lost a legal attempt to keep his name out of the records. Over the weekend, JD said it will take legal action against the publishing of untrue reports or rumors.

Liu became one of China's best-known self-made billionaires by turning a chain of electronics goods stores into an online powerhouse selling everything from mobile gadgets to fresh seafood. It's Walmart's partner in the country and its largest shareholder is WeChat operator and games giant Tencent. The CEO has amassed a fortune of about $7.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires' Index.

JD.com Bond Spreads Recover After Widening Earlier on CEO Arrest

His wife Zhang Zetian is famous in China in her own right with 1.5 million followers on Weibo. She was dubbed “Sister Milk Tea” after a photo of her holding the drink went viral on social media in the country.

Liu's JD has started pushing into physical stores and the billionaire speaks openly about his longer-term goal of expanding internationally, though its incursions overseas have so far mostly been limited to Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam. Liu has his eyes on the affluent consumers of Europe and the U.S. as he makes substantial investments in the infrastructure needed to supply millions of customers around the world.

His high-spending strategy has drawn criticism from investors who would prefer it remain focused at home. JD's share price hit a record high in January only to tumble since then after failing to deliver the full-year profit many analysts had expected. In the June quarter alone, the company had a net loss of 2.2 billion yuan ($322 million).

--With assistance from Edwin Chan.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: David Ramli in Beijing at dramli1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Robert Fenner at rfenner@bloomberg.net, Alex Wayne, Drew Armstrong

With assistance from Editorial Board