HONG KONG (AP) – Missing Chinese investment banker Bao Fan is co-operating with an investigation in China, his company China Renaissance said in a stock market filing on Sunday.
Since Bao went missing, China Renaissance Holdings Ltd’s Hong Kong-listed shares have slumped as much as 29 per cent. They were up 2.3 per cent yesterday.
“The Board has become aware that Bao is currently cooperating in an investigation being carried out by certain authorities in China,” the company filing said. “The board would like to reiterate that the business and operations of the group are continuing normally.”
Bao’s whereabouts are unclear. He is one of China’s top dealmakers in the technology industry, having worked on major deals including e-commerce company JD.com’s USD2 billion initial public offering and the public listing of short video platform Kuaishou in Hong Kong.
After working at Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley, Bao founded China Renaissance in 2005. He took it public in 2018, raising USD346 million.
Bao’s disappearance follows a crackdown on big technology companies in the past two years.
Anti-graft investigations targetting the financial sector have ensnared dozens of officials and finance executives at institutions such as Everbright Securities and China Construction Bank.
