Factbox: Five facts about missing star Chinese dealmaker and his firm

China Renaissance Holdings

18/02/2023 04:40

By Xie Yu
       HONG KONG, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Well-known Chinese
dealmaker Bao Fan, founder of investment bank China Renaissance
Holdings Ltd  1911.HK , has gone missing in the latest
disappearance of a top business executive in the country,
unnerving investors.
    The dealmaker's disappearance is the latest in a series of
cases of high-profile Chinese executives going missing with
little explanation during a sweeping anti-corruption campaign
spearheaded by President Xi Jinping.
    The reasons for Bao's disappearance are unclear.
    Here are five facts about Bao and his firm --
    * Bao entered China's prestigious Fudan University in 1989,
and later received his master's degree from the BI Norwegian
School of Management. He later worked at Credit Suisse  CSGN.S 
and Morgan Stanley  MS.N .
    * Bao started China Renaissance in 2005 as a two-person
team. The firm started its operations with financial advisory
and quickly expanded into services including underwriting, sales
and trading, as well as asset management. In recent years, Bao
has been playing an increasingly active role in the group's
private equity business.
    * One of China's best-connected bankers, Bao was involved
with major technology mergers including the tie-up of
ride-hailing firms Didi and Kuaidi, food delivery giants Meituan
 690.HK  and Dianping, and travel devices platforms Ctrip
 961.HK  and Qunar.
    * China Renaissance went public in Hong Kong in 2018 after
raising $346 million. In recent years it has acted as adviser
for some of China's biggest tech IPOs, including those of JD.Com
Inc  JD.O  and Kuaishou Technology  1024.HK  as well as Didi's
New York listing in 2021.
    * The firm is also an active investor in the tech sector. In
2019, it raised more than 6.5 billion yuan ($945 million) in a
yuan-denominated fund. Its investment management business has
assets worth around 48.6 billion yuan by the end of last June.
    * The firm is currently ranked ninth on China's equity
capital markets league table for 2023, according to Refinitiv.
It earned $20.6 million in Chinese related investment banking
fees in 2022, down from $43.13 million a year earlier.
 (Reporting by Xie Yu; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee and Michael
Perry)
 ((Yu.Xie@thomsonreuters.com;))