One more.
Billionaire Bao Fan, one of the main bankers and "godfathers" of Chinese tech, has joined the long list of high-profile businessmen to mysteriously disappear in recent years.
China Renaissance, the investment fund he manages, confirmed on Thursday February 16 that it had not heard from Bao Fan for several days.
"Hello, you all must have had a sleepless night, and I would ask you not to spread or believe rumours. At this time, we have very limited information," as to the reasons for Bao's radio silence. Fan, said Wang Lixing, one of the directors of China Renaissance, in an internal email obtained by the Financial Times.
Binge for mergers and acquisitions
This disappearance is a particularly hard blow for Chinese tech and even beyond.
Bao Fan is "the king of financial facilitators" in this sector considered one of the main engines of Chinese growth.
China Renaissance, which this 50-year-old founded in 2004, has become one of the most powerful private investment funds in China.
"He has shaped some of China's biggest tech hits, and managed to make some of them known internationally," said the South China Morning Post.
"His main feat is to have advised Didi", the Chinese start-up which has become over the years the number 1 competitor of the American giant of VTC Uber.
Bao Fan also worked on the creation of e-commerce giant Meituan, resulting from the merger of two start-ups in 2014, which has become one of the few players able to stand up to the behemoths Alibaba or Tencent.
Bao Fan and China Renaissance are true mergers and acquisitions aficionados.
In 2016, the last year for which this investment fund details its accounts on its website, this establishment based in Shanghai, Hong Kong and New York piloted 370 financial transactions with a total value of 71 billion dollars.
"Bao Fan is not only an extremely influential banker, he also personally knows all the CEOs who matter in China," said Marc Lanteigne, a sinologist at the Arctic University of Norway.
He has accompanied the holy trinity of Chinese tech entrepreneurs since their beginnings: Bao Fan knew Jack Ma from Alibaba, Pony Ma from Tencent and Robin Li from Baidu in the early 2000s "when they were still totally unknown", said he told the Financial Times on the occasion of a portrait that the British daily devoted to him in 2018.
Hence his nickname of "godfather" of Chinese tech: "he is the one who arranges matters and one can imagine that he also knows the main secrets of the elite of this universe", underlines Marc Lanteigne.
His disappearance is therefore enough to worry the elite of the digital economy: one of the main cogs in this little world no longer responds and no one knows what he could say if he was "summoned" by the authorities.
Return of the "disappearances" of billionaires?
This sudden radio silence recalls the wave of disappearances of influential businessmen between 2015 and 2020 as part of the anti-corruption campaign initiated by Chinese President Xi Jiping.
Guo Guangchang, a banker nicknamed China's "Warren Buffet", was one of the first to be temporarily sidelined from public life by the regime in 2015. This hunt for tech kings had even caught up in 2020. Jack Ma, the very charismatic boss of Alibaba.
After these disputes with power, the latter has almost never made an appearance in public and seems to have invented a new life in Japan for almost a year.
“After having supported the growth of the tech industry as much as possible, the government decided from the second half of the 2010s to call these leaders, who had become very powerful, to order,” underlines Marc Lanteigne.
The desire for political independence of a Jack Ma, for example, was not acceptable in the eyes of a Xi Jinping who believed that "the government should maintain and increase its control over the economy", continues this expert.
Despite this liability, Bao Fan's disappearance may come as a surprise.
"Relations seemed to be much better between Beijing and the tech world since the end of the 'zero covid' policy. The authorities have, in fact, eased the pressure on these groups because they need all sectors to turn to full throttle to revive Chinese growth", notes Marc Lanteigne.
In this context, "difficult to understand the logic of a 'disappearance' of Bao Fan organized by the regime", recognizes the expert.
For him, however, there are two possible explanations.
Either the regime has a score to settle specifically with China Renaissance.
It's not impossible: Cong Lin, the president of China Renaissance and one of Bao Fan's right-hand men, was summoned by the authorities in September 2021 as part of a corruption investigation.
But officially, these were facts that predated Cong Lin's arrival at China Renaissance.
Another explanation: "Xi Jinping may want to send a message to the entire sector through Bao Fan," says Marc Lanteigne.
It would then be an attempt to regain control.
Indeed, the Chinese president "has experienced some setbacks related to his 'zero Covid' policy and he wants to bring everyone back into line", concludes this expert.
This disappearance would therefore be a warning issued by the regime, warning entrepreneurs against the temptation to believe that they can afford everything in the name of the race for sacrosanct growth.
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