Questions about the ownership and corporate structure of the HNA Group, one of China’s biggest — and most acquisitive — companies, are mounting, prompting scrutiny by regulators in the United States and Europe and leading at least one Wall Street bank to step away from it.

对海航集团所有权和公司结构的疑问正在逐步增加，促使美国和欧洲的监管者们对其进行审查，并导致至少一家华尔街银行与其分手。海航集团是在海外采购最积极的中国最大企业之一。

The mystery surrounding HNA is illustrated by its relationship with a New York-based company, the Pacific American Corporation.

围绕着海航的谜团表现在海航集团有限公司与总部设在纽约的太平洋美洲公司(Pacific American Corporation)的关系上。

HNA has previously said that PAC, as it is known, is an independent company that purchases engines, spare parts and other airline equipment for HNA’s subsidiary, Hainan Airlines. HNA has said that it has no ownership stake in PAC.

海航以前曾说，太平洋美洲是一家独立公司，该公司为海航集团下属的海南航空公司购买发动机、备件和其他航空设备，并表示海航集团不拥有太平洋美洲的股权。

Previously unreported corporate documents reviewed by The New York Times show a closer relationship. PAC is run by the son and younger brother of HNA’s co-founder and co-chairman, Chen Feng, and was once controlled by HNA.

《纽约时报》查阅了此前未经报道的公司文件，文件显示，海航与太平洋美洲有更密切的关系。太平洋美洲曾由海航共同创始人、董事局主席陈峰的儿子和弟弟经营，并曾由海航控股。

The younger brother of HNA’s co-chairman was also instrumental in helping create the initial ownership structure of HNA Group, these records show, through the use of entities set up outside China, in Hong Kong and the Cayman Islands. These offshore companies effectively obscured the control wielded by top executives and their relatives.

这些文件显示，海航集团董事局主席的弟弟，通过使用在香港和开曼群岛设立的中国境外实体，对帮助建立海航最初的所有权结构起了重要作用。这些离岸实体有效地隐瞒了海航高层管理人员及其亲属对公司的控制权。

The lack of such disclosures in HNA’s regulatory filings may have violated China’s securities laws on “connected” transactions, two experts in Chinese law say. The omissions are likely to raise more questions about who ultimately controls HNA, a private company that in recent years has spent more than $30 billion acquiring stakes in global companies like Hilton Hotels and Deutsche Bank.

两位熟悉中国法律的专家说，海航未在提交给监管部门的文件中披露这些信息，可能违反了中国证券法对“关联”交易的规定。这些遗漏可能会引来更多关于什么人最终控制着海航的问题。海航是一家未上市公司，为收购希尔顿酒店和德意志银行等全球公司的股权，它近年来已经花了300多亿美元。

HNA declined to comment for this article.

海航集团拒绝对本文发表评论。

Not disclosing such connections could heighten the scrutiny in the United States and Europe, where HNA is seeking approval to acquire major foreign assets. One Wall Street bank, Bank of America, has said that it will no longer do business with the Chinese conglomerate because of concerns about its opaque corporate structure, among other things, according to an internal email.

海航正在为收购大笔外国资产寻求美国和欧洲的批准，不披露上述关系可能会让美国和欧洲加强审查。一份内部电子邮件显示，华尔街银行之一的美国银行(Bank of America)已表示不再与这个中国企业集团合作，因为该银行对海航不透明的公司结构及其他问题表示担心。

No regulator in the United States, Europe or Hong Kong has accused HNA of any misconduct.

美国、欧洲或香港的监管机构都还没有指责海航集团有任何不当行为。

HNA’s relationship with PAC is significant because it helps explain how the company runs its global operations and also offers clues about who ultimately controls a $100 billion conglomerate that has substantial backing from China’s state banks.

海航与太平洋美洲的关系很重要，因为这种关系有助于了解海航如何经营其全球业务，并为谁是这个价值1000亿美元、得到中国国有银行大力支持的企业集团的最终控制者提供线索。

Its ties to the company are documented in court records in the United States, a regulatory filing in Singapore and online sources, including LinkedIn. For example, two of HNA’s senior executives in the United States — Daniel Chen, the son of Chen Feng, HNA’s co-chairman, and Chen Guoqing, the younger brother of that same co-chairman — say they have worked simultaneously for HNA and PAC, as vice chairman and chief executive, according to online biographical sketches. (Members of the Chen family could not be reached for comment.)

海航与太平洋美洲的关系在美国的法庭记录、新加坡的监管文件，以及包括领英(LinkedIn)在内的其他在线材料中都有记载。比如，据网上的生平小传称，海航在美国的两名高级管理人员、海航集团董事局主席陈峰的儿子陈晓峰(Daniel Chen)和弟弟陈国庆都说，他们曾同时为海航和太平洋美洲工作，担任过太平洋美洲的副董事长和首席执行官。（记者未能联系到陈家人对此置评。）

And in two different court cases involving HNA’s subsidiary, Hainan Airlines, company executives and longtime business partners have acknowledged, under oath, that PAC was at one time an affiliate of HNA or its subsidiary, Hainan Airlines.

而且，在两起涉及海航集团子公司海南航空的不同案件里，公司高管和长期业务合作伙伴都在宣誓属实的证词中承认，太平洋美洲与海航集团或其子公司海南航空曾经有过隶属关系。

“Hainan Airlines is an affiliate of Pacific American Corporation,” Zhu Yimin, the chief executive of Hainan Airlines said in a 2004 statement submitted in a bankruptcy case, Dornier Aviation v. Hainan Airlines. “Hainan Airlines and Pacific American Corporation share a parent company, Hainan Group Co. Ltd.”

“海南航空是太平洋美国公司的子公司，”海南航空公司首席执行官朱益民就多尼尔北美航空公司(Dornier Aviation)诉海南航空公司的破产案在2004年提交法庭的一份陈述中说。“海南航空与太平洋美国公司同属于母公司海南集团有限公司。”

In recent years, Pacific American has acquired two residential properties in One57, a luxurious Manhattan high-rise overlooking Central Park, for about $50 million apiece, according to deed documents.

据地契文件，太平洋美国已在最近几年，在俯瞰中央公园的曼哈顿豪华高层公寓楼One57里，购买了两套住宅，共花了约5000万美元。

A review of corporate filings indicates that many of the deals between HNA and PAC have not been disclosed in regulatory filings of HNA’s listed companies or in public filings that accompanied HNA’s bond offerings to Chinese or foreign shareholders.

 对公司报表的查阅表明，在海航下属上市公司提交的监管文件中，或在海航为向中国或外国股东发行债券而提交的公开文件中，海航集团与太平洋美洲之间的许多交易未曾得到披露。

Nor has HNA revealed the involvement of family members of HNA’s co-chairman, Chen Feng, in PAC, a company that has often been described in regulatory filings by HNA as a lender and purchasing agent.

海航也没有披露过海航董事局主席陈峰的家庭成员参与太平洋美国经营的信息，海航在提交给监管机构的文件中通常把太平洋美国描述为贷款方和采购商。

Corporate governance experts say this is a poor way to operate because of the potential for conflicts of interest.

公司治理方面的专家说，这是一种糟糕的经营方式，因为存在潜在的利益冲突。

“When you’re an investor, you’re entrusting your money to someone and so one of the things you want to know is whether they’re taking care of your money,” says Nell Minow, a longtime authority on corporate governance. “Investors want to know whether some of their money is going to companies run by relatives. And if a company sets up a structure to obscure this, it’s an even bigger red flag.”

“当你作为投资者把资金委托给某人使用时，你想知道的事情之一是，他们是否好好管理你的资金，”公司治理方面的长期权威人士内尔·米诺(Nell Minow)说。“投资者想知道他们资金的一部分是不是到了由亲属经营的公司上。如果一家公司设立了一种结构来隐瞒这个的话，那就更该引起人们警惕了。”

At PAC, one of the top executives is Chen Guoqing, 61, the younger brother of HNA’s co-chairman, Chen Feng. In the early 1990s, around the time the older Mr. Chen was setting up Hainan Airlines as a joint stock company, his younger brother began registering a series of companies in Beijing and Hainan Province that would soon do business with the airline.

太平洋美洲的高管之一是61岁的陈国庆，他是海航董事会主席陈峰的弟弟。20世纪90年代初，在陈峰对海南航空进行股份制改造的同时，他的弟弟开始在北京市和海南省注册成立一系列公司，这些公司后来都与海南航空有业务关系。

Even before George Soros, a billionaire, made a large investment in Hainan Airlines, Chen Guoqing moved to the United States to set up the Pacific American Corporation (originally called Hainan American) to help the fledgling Chinese airline buy engines and spare parts in the overseas market. According to a contract filed in a federal court, PAC was the exclusive overseas purchasing agent for Hainan Airlines, taking a 1.5 percent agency fee.

早在亿万富翁乔治·索罗斯(George Soros)对海南航空做了大笔投资之前，陈国庆就搬到了美国，在那里成立了太平洋美洲公司（原名海南美洲），以帮助刚刚起步的海南航空在海外市场购买引擎和零配件。据提交给一家联邦法院的合同，太平洋美洲是海南航空的独家海外采购代理，向海南航空收取1.5%的代理费。

PAC quickly struck deals with some of America’s biggest aircraft makers and parts suppliers, including Boeing and Honeywell. And as Hainan Airlines grew from a state-backed airline into a sprawling conglomerate, with airports, hotels, shipping and logistics services, PAC began venturing into other businesses, including managing corporate jets, investing with HNA in a Chinese leasing company and selling a European hotel chain to HNA, according to regulatory filings in China and Singapore.

太平洋美洲很快与包括波音和霍尼韦尔(Honeywell)在内的几家美国最大的飞机制造商和配件供应商达成协议。随着海南航空从一个靠国家支持的航空公司发展成一个庞大的、业务涉及机场、酒店、航运和物流服务的企业集团，太平洋美洲开始进军其他业务，据在中国和新加坡提交的监管文件，这些业务包括为企业管理商务机、与海航集团一起投资一家中国租赁公司，以及把欧洲一家连锁酒店卖给海航集团。

In New York, Chen Guoqing set up an office at the World Trade Center, and bought an apartment in Trump International Hotel and Tower Condominium in 1997, through PAC. He also joined some of the city’s leading arts and cultural organizations, including the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts and the Asia Society. More recently, he joined the board of trustees of Brown University.

陈国庆在纽约的世界贸易中心设立了办事处，并于1997年通过太平洋美洲在特朗普国际酒店和公寓大厦(Trump International Hotel and Tower Condominium)购买了一套公寓。他还加入了纽约一些主要艺术文化组织的董事会，包括林肯表演艺术中心和亚洲协会，并于最近加入了布朗大学的董事会。

In his biography on the Asia Society website, he is called a co-founder of Hainan Airlines, and vice chairman and chief executive of PAC, “a subsidiary of HNA.” (A spokesman for HNA has previously disputed that PAC is a subsidiary of HNA.)

在亚洲协会网站上刊发的生平中，陈国庆被称为海南航空公司的联合创始人、“海航集团子公司”太平洋美洲的副董事长兼首席执行官。（海航集团的一名发言人以前曾对太平洋美洲是海航子公司的说法表示异议。）

Corporate records filed in the Hong Kong Companies Registry, and with China’s State Administration of Industry and Commerce, show that he also played a crucial role in helping the senior executives at Hainan Airlines make the transformation from leading a state-backed airline to gaining a majority stake in what soon became a much larger, privately held conglomerate called the HNA Group.

向香港公司注册处和中国国家工商行政管理总局提交的公司记录显示，陈国庆在帮助海南航空公司高管进行身份转变上起了关键作用，这些人从一家国家支持的航空公司领导者摇身变为持有公司控制股权的人，而公司则变成了一家更大的、私人拥有的企业集团。

To get there, Mr. Chen set up a series of offshore companies with a small network of relatives, longtime business partners and HNA executives, according to the corporate filings. The entities they set up, in Hong Kong and the Cayman Islands, with names such as Headstreams Investment and Tang Dynasty Development, soon gained control over a large stake in the HNA Group. The roles of the company’s top executives and their relatives were effectively hidden behind a series of foreign-owned companies outside of China, according to corporate records reviewed by The Times.

据提交的企业文件，陈国庆的做法是，用一个亲戚、长期业务合作伙伴和海航管理人员的网络，成立了一系列离岸公司。他们在香港和开曼群岛成立的这些实体的名字包括Headstreams Investment和Tang Dynasty Development，这些实体很快控制了海航集团的大量股份。在时报查阅的公司报表中，海航集团高层管理人员及其亲属的角色被中国境外的一系列外商独资企业有效地隐藏起来。

The group that set up the offshore entities included HNA’s current chief executive, Adam Tan, who once worked for PAC; Daniel Chen, the son of HNA’s co-chairman, Chen Feng; Chen Guoqing; and George F. Meng, who has worked at PAC.

成立离岸实体的人中包括曾为太平洋美洲工作、现任海航集团首席执行官的谭向东(Adam Tan)、海航集团董事局主席陈锋的儿子陈晓峰，以及曾在太平洋美洲工作的孟繁巨(George F. Meng)。

After the HNA Group went on a frenzied buying spree, spending billions of dollars on global brands, a large portion of those offshore holdings — now estimated to be worth about $20 billion — were transferred from a group affiliated with HNA top executives to a private businessman named Guan Jun.

在海航集团进行了一轮疯狂采购、花数十亿美元买下几个全球品牌之后，这些离岸实体按目前估计约为200亿美元的股权的大部分已经从一个与海航高层管理人员有关的组织转移到一个名叫贯君（音）的私商手里。

HNA, through a spokesman, declined to speak on the identity of Mr. Guan, who could not be reached for comment. Recently, though, the company announced that Mr. Guan had donated all of his shares to a newly created New York-based charitable organization set up by HNA called the Hainan Cihang Charity Foundation.

海航通过一名发言人表示，拒绝对贯君的身份发表评论。记者也无法联系该人请其置评。但公司最近宣布，贯君已将其所持的全部股份捐献给海航集团在纽约新成立的一家慈善机构，海南慈航公益基金会。

Mr. Tan, HNA’s chief executive, told The Financial Times that these were HNA shares that the company kept offshore for decades and did not want to disclose.

海航首席执行官谭向东对《金融时报》说，那是公司几十年来一直离岸保留的海航集团股份，公司曾不想披露这些股份。

He also called the 30 percent stake held by Mr. Guan, HNA’s “own shares,” noting that Mr. Guan and Bharat Bhise, a longtime adviser to the company, “had just held the stake for us. That’s why I can move the shares.”

他还把贯君所持的30%的股份称为海航“自有股份”，并说贯君和公司的长期顾问巴拉特·拜斯(Bharat Bhise)只不过是“为我们持股而已。这就是为什么我可以转移这些股份的原因。”

A review of corporate records, in China and Hong Kong, holds only a few clues to Mr. Guan’s identity. He is a former business partner of Daniel Chen, the son of HNA’s co-chairman, Chen Feng. And the shares he held originated with two of the men who helped register Pacific American in New York: Chen Guoqing and George F. Meng.

查阅中国和香港的公司记录只为贯君的身份提供了几点线索。他曾是海航董事局主席陈锋的儿子陈晓峰的商业伙伴。他所持有的股份来自两名帮助在纽约注册太平洋美洲的人：陈国庆和孟繁巨。