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Wuxi Suntech was founded in 2001 by Dr. Shi Zhengrong, an internationally recognized scholar in the photovoltaic (PV) and renewable energy engineering. Suntech, the first private Chinese company to list on the New York Stock Exchange, was the largest solar PV manufacturer in China and the world's third largest. Its story was once recognized as a 'perfect match' of the promising new energy industry with the technical know-how and the comparative advantage of Chinese manufactured exports as well as the financial power of global capital markets. The bankruptcy of such a successful company was hence a puzzle to the business society in China and the world. How did the company rapidly emerge as an industry leader in the booming solar PV market but suddenly fail during the global financial crisis period? The case of Wuxi Suntech's bankruptcy under Dr. Shi's leadership provides rich material for the analysis of business strategy, industry structure, entrepreneurship, emerging markets and finance.

Nanjing Gaoke, a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE), has reformed itself into a listed company in China's emerging capital market with a strategic focus on equity investment in high-potential emerging companies, enabling the SOE to effectively leverage financial resources and expand its business portfolio into diversified industries. After merely 25 years of history, Nanjing Gaoke has built up four core business sectors for its investments: urban real estate development, pharmaceuticals, finance and venture capital investment. Its shareholder equity capital has increased by more than 1,000 times compared to its original paid-up equity capital. Since the Nanjing municipal government has been the major shareholder of Nanjing Gaoke, the state-owned asset has also increased substantially with Nanjing Gaoke's business portfolio expansion. With the increasingly diversified investment portfolio managed under the structure of a listed company, Nanjing Gaoke is no longer a typical SOE but a government-controlled shareholding company fully integrated into the market economy. Its multi-tier investment system under varying organisational structure of ownerships has enabled itself to deviate from the direct control of the government's State-owned Asset Supervision and Administrative Commission and manage its asset portfolio more efficiently by following changing market conditions.