The billionaire founder of the Chinese investment bank China Renaissance, Bao Fan, who is missing, tried at the end of 2022 to move part of his fortune from China and Hong Kong to Singapore, where he was trying to create a fund to manage his wealth, according to the Financial Times.
The article, published today and citing four people with knowledge of the banker’s plans as sources, tried in the last months of 2022 to establish a family office in the prosperous Asian city-state to manage his wealth from there.
“As many wealthy Chinese have done in the wake of (Beijing’s) anti-tech crackdown in China during the lockdown, I was trying to diversify my wealth in Singapore,” points out one of the FT sources, without revealing his identity.
After experiencing years of strong growth due in part to lax enforcement, China’s tech sector has been the target of a tough regulatory campaign, kicking off after last-minute frustration over the fintech IPO. ‘ Ant Group -the largest in history, if it occurred- in 2020.
The regulatory campaign in the digital sector resulted in multimillion-dollar sanctions against firms such as Alibaba or investigations such as the one opened against the ‘Chinese Uber’ Didi, after it went public in New York despite the apparent opposition of the Government.
Precisely, bao fan is well known in China for its participation in major operations in the technology sector, such as the mergers of didi with Kuaidi, that of the food delivery giants Meituan and Dianping or the travel platforms Ctrip and Qunar.
Last February 17 China Reinassance He revealed his disappearance in a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, without specifying how long he had been absent, but the Caixin economic portal, citing its own sources, assured that the bank had not been able to contact him for two days.
It is unknown if Bao was in Singapore during the negotiations, a condition not necessary to open a family office on the island, which is a way to obtain residency in the prosperous city-state, nor if he successfully concluded his plans. , according to the FT.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS, for its acronym in English) established a unit in 2019 to attract more family offices to the country, which have gone from being an exception years ago to now constituting a thriving sector, with around 1,500 registered, according to the island data consultancy Handshakes.
Source: EFE
Source: Gestion
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