Ultimately, as The New York Times reports, they are controlled by about 100 people, many of whom hail from a county called Pingyang on China’s east coast. Pingyang County is the home county of Anbang’s chairman, Wu Xiaohui.

In any major country, the shareholders of marquee companies are often household names themselves. General Electric counts major institutional investors such as the Vanguard Group and BlackRock as top owners. Berkshire Hathaway’s biggest shareholder is its chairman, Warren E. Buffett.

China is no exception. Dalian Wanda Commercial Properties, for example, led by China’s richest man, Wang Jianlin, may match Anbang in the breadth of its political connections, but many of its biggest shareholders are easily recognizable Chinese companies like China Life Insurance.

Anbang is different. The companies that own it, and the people who back them, are almost all obscure. Two state-owned companies that collectively own less than 2 percent of Anbang are the only exceptions. I first started writing about Chinese companies 16 years ago and have never seen a similar ownership structure at a major company.

That is remarkable, given Anbang’s increasing size and prominence. Earlier this year, Anbang came close to executing what would have been the biggest takeover ever of an American company by a Chinese company, offering more than $14 billion for Starwood Hotels & Resorts.

In China, the company not only sells auto and life insurance, but also controls a major bank in southwestern China, is the largest shareholder of one of the country’s biggest financial conglomerates, China Minsheng Banking Corporation, and is the second-largest shareholder in another, China Merchants Bank.

But China is not an offshore haven like the Cayman Islands or the British Virgin Islands. The country’s online corporate records system allows those with patience to find the names behind the holding companies, even if — as with Anbang — the corporate shareholders frequently change names, addresses and owners.