Prominent Chinese investment bank says its founder is unreachable

Shares of the company that operates one of China’s top investment banks, China Renaissance, plunged there after the firm said it had lost contact with its founder, Bao Fan, one of the country’s top bankers and top tech-sector dealmaker.

China Renaissance Holdings said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange that it has been unable to contact Bao, who has worked on major deals including e-commerce JD.com’s $2-billion US initial public offering and short video public listing. Kuaishou platform in Hong Kong.

The company said it was “not aware of any information indicating that Mr Bao’s unavailability” was related to the group’s business.

Bao previously worked at Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley. He founded China Renaissance in 2005 and took it public in 2018, raising $346 million US.

They disappeared after a crackdown on big tech companies over the past two years, which officials in China say has ended.

Share the swoon

Shares in China Renaissance fell by as much as 50 percent in Hong Kong. They were down around 28 percent in the afternoon.

“If a listed company voluntarily announces that a senior manager or a major shareholder cannot be contacted, it is unusual, because that person may not be reachable for some time,” said Dickie Wong, executive director of research at Kingston Securities. Investors fear that the company’s ability to continue operations will be damaged, so the stock sell-off is not surprising given the uncertainty, Wong added.

Bao disappeared after former China Renaissance president Cong Lin was captured by Chinese authorities in September last year, according to Chinese news media outlet Caixin, which first reported the news.

China’s anti-corruption probe targeting the financial sector has ensnared dozens of officials and finance executives at institutions such as Everbright Securities, China Construction Bank and major bank ICBC.

Last month, e-commerce billionaire Jack Ma said he would give up control of Ant Group, the Chinese financial technology provider he founded. The company is an affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba, which Ma also founded.

The move follows years of efforts by the Chinese government to control Ma and the country’s technology sector more broadly. Two years ago, Ma largely disappeared from view for 2½ months after criticizing Chinese regulators.