China's government has taken over one of the country's largest companies amid fears of it going bust. Anbang was transformed into a global giant during China's economic boom. But its chairman will now be prosecuted for a number of financial crimes. CGTN's Owen Fairclough has more.

When China's Anbang bought New York's iconic Waldorf Astoria for nearly two billion dollars it was among the highest prices ever paid for a hotel. The shopping spree was the culmination of an aggressive global expansion. But now the insurance conglomerate is under Chinese government control over fears for its solvency, unprecedented for a non-state company of this size with a big footprint in the financial system.

HONG HAO CHIEF CHINA STRATEGIST, BOCOM INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS "People had been a little concerned about holdings. For example, if you look at Anbang's stock holding it has a lot of capital stocks, including some very prominent banks in China and its current stock portfolio is about 200 billion RMB. So, it is quite a sizeable stock holding."

Anbang had just one branch in Beijing in 2004, but now has more than 300 billion dollars in assets after snapping up businesses from South Korea to Belgium, the Netherlands and the U.S. Anbang's chairman Wu Xiaohui will be prosecuted with fraud and abuse of his office, having been detained in June last year, and that may have helped to stop financial markets panicking.

HONG HAO CHIEF CHINA STRATEGIST, BOCOM INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS "All the stock that is related to Anbang's holding has performed well even the bank has managed to edge up some gains. I would say that because the market has been anticipating this ever since the chairman was under investigation. So, I would (guess) there's a certain amount of market expectation that is priced into the market price."

A working group will run Anbang for the next 12 months, restructuring its equity to protect shareholders and maintain its operations. Owen Fairclough, CGTN.