Former China brokerage chief kills himself

The former head of Chinese brokerage Changjiang Securities has committed suicide, the official Xinhua news agency reported Tuesday, just weeks after the company said he was under investigation by authorities.

Yang Zezhu apparently jumped from a 12-storey residential building in the central city of Wuhan on Tuesday afternoon after leaving a suicide note, Xinhua said on its microblog. Police are still investigating the case.

In early January, Changjiang Securities said in a statement to the Shenzhen stock exchange that Yang was under investigation by the Communist Party corruption watchdog for suspected violations of discipline, a phrase that typically refers to graft.

Yang stepped down soon afterwards as both chairman and party chief of the securities firm, a mid-sized brokerage that was ranked 17th by assets nationwide in 2014.

He previously headed a Hubei provincial government agency that oversaw state assets.

China has recently targeted the financial sector as part of a larger crackdown on corruption spearheaded by President Xi Jinping.

In October, China's corruption watchdog said it would expand its inspections to major financial institutions, which are already under pressure after a stock market rout last year.