Shares of China Renaissance Holdings, the boutique investment bank founded by missing tech dealmaker Bao Fan, have taken a sharp turn after experiencing record losses. On Monday, the Hong Kong-listed stock initially rose as much as 3.5 percent before giving up its gains and falling to as low as 6.82 Hong Kong dollars ($0.87). This followed a 28 percent drop on Friday, when the share price hit an all-time low of 5 Hong Kong dollars ($0.64).
The company said on Thursday that it was unable to reach its chairman, but that its operations were continuing as normal. Bao is the latest in a long line of prominent business figures to go missing in China, where authorities can detain suspects for lengthy periods without charge or access to legal representation. This includes Chinese-Canadian billionaire Xiao Jianhua, who disappeared from public view for five years after being taken from his Hong Kong hotel in 2017, and Yim Fung, the chief of Chinese broker Guotai Junan International, who vanished for more than a month in 2015.
Bloomberg News reported on Friday that Bao’s family has been told the investment banker is assisting with an investigation, citing an unnamed person familiar with the matter. This follows Chinese President Xi Jinping’s sweeping crackdown on corruption since taking power in 2012, which critics have accused him of using as a pretext to purge political rivals. Jack Ma, the founder of tech behemoth Alibaba, dropped out of public view for a year after making critical comments about China’s financial regulators before reemerging in public in late 2021.