February 21, 2023: Chinese investment banker Bao Fan has gone missing, his firm China Renaissance Holdings stated on Thursday.

  Renaissance in China has stated that it “has been unable to contact Mr Bao Fan,” a filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange stated.

The filing said the Beijing-based fund manager and investment bank is operating normally.

Bao is the firm’s controlling shareholder, chairman, executive director and CEO.

Shares of China Renaissance have gone by over 20% in Hong Kong trading on Friday.

China Renaissance stock performance Alibaba-affiliate Ant business was one of the significant investors in China Renaissance leading up to its listing in Hong Kong in 2018. In 2020, Chinese authorities suspended Ant’s plans for a massive initial public being offered.

China Renaissance has played an essential role in China’s internet tech world in the previous decade. Meituan and Dianping advise the investment bank in their huge merger and subsequent IPO in Hong Kong.

China Renaissance was also an advisor to the merger that is now Didi and was an underwriter of the ride-hailing firm’s U.S. IPO in June 2021.

Chinese authorities began to tighten their scrutiny on overseas listings that summer.

Days after Didi’s IPO, authorities announced a cybersecurity review of the company, halting new user registrations. The company was delisted later that year. Didi said in the previous month that, it received approval to register recent users again.

Despite greater caution on China investing after Didi’s IPO, China Renaissance’s Huaxing Growth Capital announced that it received nearly $550 million in a fund closing.

Chinese financial news outlet Caixin pointed out that Bao’s disappearance followed the investigation of Cong Lin.

Cong was the chairman of China Renaissance’s subsidiary Huajing Securities until this month, according to the business records database Tianyancha.