THE house of cards built by the city's richest man Zhou Zhengyi collapsed in the course of just one week.

　　On May 28, the price of Zhou's two listed companies in Hong Kong fell successively by 40 per cent and by 20.97 per cent over two days, the Southern Weekend reported.

　　On May 31, construction work ceased on a new financial building at the crossing of Hankou Lu and Sichuan Lu. Next day, another building on Gubei Lu also shut down.

　　On the afternoon of June 1, the restaurant A-mao Dunping stopped business. A note on the door said the store was now up for rent.

　　The two construction sites are "golden" projects for Zhou's companies, while the restaurant was the business giving him his first taste of fortune.

　　On June 2, a spokesman for the city government confirmed for the first time that the tycoon was being investigated because his flagship company Nongkai Group had questionable loans. Zhou was detained for questioning by the Central Disciplinary Inspection Commission. The investigation is said to be "just starting".

　　The same day, Hong Kong ICAC arrested Mao Yuping, Zhou's wife and searched her office and home.

　　Humble beginnings

　　Zhou Zhengyi, 43, born in Shanghai, ran a snack store, garment store and KTV in his 20s. At that time, he was just a self-employed individual which was not seen as a good career at the time.

　　He went to Japan in late 1980s and opened the restaurant mentioned above on Huanghe Lu with his wife in 1994.

　　The 100-metre long road, a gathering place for over 50 restaurants, is a famous culinary street in the city. Zhou's restaurant is one of the most famous of these and earned him his first serious income.

　　Zhou once said the yearly profits of A-mao Dunping reached 10 million yuan (US.2 million). Just before closing its doors, the restaurant was still bringing in millions of yuan each year.

　　Such achievements for a man born in a poor family were already impressive. Zhou's father, who was a worker, supported the whole family of seven members with his meager income. Zhou also worked as an accountant in a factory when he was 17 years old, after finishing middle school. His monthly income was only 30 yuan (US.6) at the time.

　　For many people, to rise from a poor child to the boss of a very profitable restaurant is more than enough to hope for. But Zhou was still far from satisfied.

　　Riches pour in

　　In 1995, the year when many SOE employees sold their shares in the companies, Zhou invested all his bank savings in them, earning hundreds of millions of yuan.

　　"At that time, most SOE staff needed money instead of shares, so they sold to us," he said. When the enterprises were listed on the stock market, their values rocketed.

　　From 1994 to 1997, based on the restaurant, Zhou completed the first phase of making his fortune.

　　In 1997, Zhou launched the Nongkai Development Group. During the following four years, his business was highly successful. He earned the reputation of being the richest man in Shanghai.

　　In the Forbes China listing for 2001, Zhou was listed as 94th with only 550 million yuan (US.5 million) of property. But Zhou complained "my fortune isn't that small. The total property held by my family is worth about 15 billion yuan."

　　In the 2002 list, he rocketed to eleventh place and was given the title "the Shanghai Tycoon".

　　In 2002, when the Forbes China list was released, Zhou boasted to local media that with the 12 billion yuan of cash available to his Nongkai Development Group, he would soon be in a position to compete with (Hong Kong billionaire) Li Ka Shing.

　　At that time, his business covered five fields: real estate and infrastructure, finance, trade, agriculture and high technology. But how he acquired such enormous property holdings still remains a mystery.

　　Diversify, diversify

　　The year 2002 was another milestone for Zhou's business because in that year he bought up even more property in Shanghai and invested in ever larger projects. He also bought two listed companies in Hong Kong, in January and May. All these investment required immense quantities of capital.

　　Hong Kong media commented admiringly that Mr. Zhou had changed from a tycoon on the entertainment page to one on the finance page.

　　Previously, Zhou's name had been linked with several Hong Kong film stars. Kristey Yeung was one of them. This pretty young woman also came from Shanghai and was said to have a close relationship with Zhou, according to the Hong Kong media.

　　His Bentley, a very luxurious car, along with his Ferrari and luxury house and office were also hot topics.

　　In addition to his Hong Kong stock market assets and the Nongkai Group copper trading income, his real estate holdings in Shanghai which has soared in value since the late 1990s, carried Zhou to ever higher peaks.

　　Zhou continued to purchase large quantities of land. His purchases are mainly focused in four areas: the 400,000 square metres in Dongjiadu near Nanpu Bridge; 380,000 square metres of land in Dapuqiao; 800,000 square metres in the Jing'an District and 200 hectares in the Putuo District's Changfeng area.

　　Among these, the land in Jing'an is the most eye-catching because it encompasses the largest renovation project in the old downtown area. Zhou said he would invest 5 billion yuan to build high-grade residential houses.

　　The downfall

　　All these projects required money , yet at the same time, bad news began to arrive in drifts.

　　The city government issued regulations insisting real estate developers pay off the whole purchase price before gaining control of the land. The previous situation was significantly more flexible.

　　The Financial Times said Zhou had not even begun to pay for at least one of his six projects in Shanghai.

　　Another piece of bad news was the slide in the value of high-grade buildings that appeared as investors began to worry about a top-end property bubble. One of his properties that was recently valued at US,500-2,700 per square metre has only fetched 30 per cent of this value since November.

　　Until May this year, construction had still not begun on the four areas owned by Zhou in the downtown area, bringing unwelcome attention from the financial institutions which had advanced him loans.

　　Just as Zhou's capital fell short, the president of the Bank of China Hong Kong, Liu Jinbao, was removed to Beijing. Zhou's credit-line collapsed.

　　However, insiders trace Zhou's downfall back to incidents concerning land he owns in the Jing'an District. Local residents wrote to the central government complaining about Zhou's illegal practices in purchasing this property.