The billionaire founder of the Chinese investment bank China Renaissance, Bao Fan, has been missing for days, the company revealed in a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, in which its shares lost 28.2% of their value today after the news was released. .
“The company has not been able to contact Mr. Bao Fan (…). The board is not aware of any information indicating that Mr. Bao’s unavailability is or may be related to the group’s business or operations, which continue as normal,” China Renaissance said in a document sent to the Hong Kong stock market last night.
According to sources familiar with the situation and quoted by the Caixin economic news portal, Bao has not come to his office or been seen in public for days.
The banker is well known in the country for his participation in important operations in the technology sector such as the mergers of the ‘Chinese Uber’ Didi with Kuaidi, that of the food delivery giants Meituan and Dianping or the travel platforms Ctrip and Qunar .
Caixin recalls that China Renaissance was already immersed in turbulence since its president, Cong Lin, was arrested by the Chinese authorities in September 2022.
In fact, according to the economic media Yicai, company sources speculate that Bao’s disappearance “has something to do” with the situation of Cong, hired in 2020 by the founder of China Renaissance after a long career in the company. who mainly worked at the country’s largest state bank, ICBC.
Bao’s disappearance is another of many Chinese billionaires. They have repeatedly disappeared suddenly for periods of time for unknown reasons.
According to Forbes magazine, at least six have disappeared in recent years after disputes with the Xi Jinping regime.
In 2015, the founder of Fosun Group, Guo Guangchang, lost track of him for several days.
Then it was the turn of the Chinese-Canadian Xiao Jianhua, kidnapped in 2017. He was one of the richest people in China and last year he was jailed for corruption.
At the end of 2020, Alibaba founder Jack Ma disappeared from public view for three months after criticizing market regulators. He was then planning to take his digital payments company Ant Financial public, which would likely have made him the richest person in China.
(With information from EFE)