China National Aviation Corporation
By the start of 1930 China Airways was at the point of bankruptcy and threatened to stop operations altogether unless the Ministry of Communications released its revenue. An old China hand named Max Polin managed to broker a new deal between China Airways and the Ministry of Communication. On 8 July the two rival airmail operators merged into a reconfigured China National Aviation Corporation, which thereafter was better known by its acronym, CNAC. The Chinese government had a 55 percent share and Keys' interests had a 45 percent share in CNAC. The Keys share in CNAC wound up in Intercontinent Aviation, another holding company that he had established in 1929 to handle foreign airline investments; by that stage Intercontinent itself had become part of North American Aviation, another firm founded by Keys in 1928.