Bloomberg: The disappearance of the financier raised fears of a new wave of pressure on Chinese business
One of the largest investors in China’s technology sector, financier Bao Fan, has gone missing and has not been contacted for two days. informs Bloomberg. This caused fears in the country’s business elites that the authorities would intensify pressure on entrepreneurs.
Representatives of the investment bank China Renaissance Holding, which is headed by Bao Fan, said they could not contact the businessman since February 16. The family of the financier was told that he is helping the authorities with some kind of investigation related to his companies. Against the background of information about the disappearance of a businessman, the share price of China Renaissance Holding fell by 28 percent.
At the same time, it remains unclear whether this is evidence of a new wave of investigations against big business in China, which stirred up Chinese entrepreneurs in 2021, the agency points out. Then the Chinese authorities began to massively check the financial sector for violations of anti-corruption laws, and dozens of officials were fired.
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“If the government is behind the disappearance of such a big banker as Bao Fan, they should have thought about the consequences of their actions for the public. Regulators should act cautiously, because private investors in China are already on edge, ”said Victor Shi, a professor at the University of California.
Until 2005, Fan worked as a banker at Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse Group, and then founded his own investment company in China. He has invested in and facilitated the listing of 574 technology companies in the country, and has worked closely with Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings. China Renaissance Holding had 48.6 billion yuan (about $7.1 billion) in funds under management as of the end of June 2022, according to the latest interim report.
One of the latest scandals with Chinese billionaires was the loss by businessman and founder of Alibaba Group Jack Ma of control over his fintech company Ant Group under pressure from the country’s authorities in January 2023. However, the conflict between the PRC leadership and Ma began earlier – in 2020, when Ma criticized the structure of China’s financial system. He accused state-owned banks of a “pawn shop mentality” and believed that regulators were holding back innovation, while new players in the technology market could lend to innovative but low-income companies and individuals. Shortly thereafter, according to the media, Chinese President Xi Jinping personally ordered at the last moment to suspend the initial public offering (IPO) of Ant Group.
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