UPDATE
Feb 27, 2023 12:30 AM CST
Bao Fan, the billionaire Chinese investment banking CEO who has disappeared, is "cooperating in" a government investigation, according to China Renaissance Holdings, the company he founded and runs—and which reported him missing weeks ago. The company's board has since "become aware that Mr. Bao is currently cooperating in an investigation being carried out by certain authorities in the People’s Republic of China," the firm said in a Sunday filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange cited by the New York Times and CNBC. The filing says operations continue normally, but gives no details as to Bao's location or what the investigation is centered on.
Feb 17, 2023 6:35 AM CST
As the CEO of China Renaissance Holdings, Bao Fan was behind some of the largest investment deals in China, and became known as a "titan" in the country's tech industry. Now, he's one of the latest high-profile businessmen to vanish there, amid a crackdown on major tech firms. On Thursday, China Renaissance noted in a filing to Hong Kong's stock exchange that it hasn't been able to reach its 50-something founder, adding that it was "not aware of any information that indicates Mr. Bao's unavailability" was tied to company business, per the AP. Shares fell by as much as 50% Friday in Hong Kong on the news of Bao's disappearance, causing China Renaissance's stock to lose more than $350 million in market value, per Reuters. The stock was down about 28% later Friday afternoon.
It isn't clear how long Bao has been missing, but Dickie Wong, executive director of research at Kingston Securities, notes, "If a listed company voluntarily discloses that a senior manager or a major shareholder cannot be contacted, it's truly unusual, as the person might have been out of reach for some time." Bao, who founded the company in 2005 after working for Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, is known for pulling off such major deals as the merger between Meituan and Dianping, two of China's top food-delivery services. He's also the latest in a string of Chinese executives "to suddenly drop off the radar with little explanation," per CNN Business. In 2015 alone, at least five businessmen vanished, including Fosun Group Chair Guo Guangchang, known as the "Warren Buffett of China."
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Other big names to disappear include Xiao Jianhua, founder of Tomorrow Holdings, in 2017, after he was seized by Chinese security personnel at a Four Seasons hotel in Hong Kong (he was sentenced last summer to 13 years in prison), as well as Alibaba founder Jack Ma, who went missing for three months or so in late 2020 and then popped up again at a conference in early 2021. The BBC notes that, according to a Chinese business wire, China Renaissance's president, Cong Lin, was taken by authorities in September, and that his name is now no longer listed on the company's website or in its latest interim report. (More missing person stories.)
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