Missing Chinese investment banker Bao Fan was preparing to move some of his fortune from China and Hong Kong to Singapore in the months leading up to his disappearance, according to four people with knowledge of his plans.
The billionaire founder and chair of investment bank China Renaissance, who brokered some of China’s biggest tech deals, was establishing a family office in the city-state to manage his personal wealth in the final months of 2022, the people said.
A growing number of Chinese executives have set up family offices, a privately held company that manages investments, in Singapore after Beijing launched a regulatory assault on the tech sector and an anti-corruption crackdown. They increasingly view the city-state, dubbed the “Switzerland of Asia”, as a haven to park their money.