Diao Yang, head of client solutions group, and Gloria Lu, head of equities are leaving China Renaissance to pursue other opportunities, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Based in Hong Kong, both Diao and Lu haven been on gardening leave and no longer carry on any official duties on behalf of the Beijing-based boutique investment bank. They are scheduled to leave the company in mid April and early May, two people at the bank said.
The personnel changes were announced internally earlier this week.
A third person at China Renaissance told FinanceAsia that Diao's and Lu's departure were “a friendly departure” and that the bank has already secured replacements from rival Western banks, with an official announcement due soon.
Jason Lam, president of China Renaissance’s Hong Kong office, will take charge of the relevant businesses until their successors get on board.
Diao joined China Renaissance in October 2014 and at the time shared a newly created role as co-head of investment banking with Lam. He later moved to his current position.
Previously, Diao led investment banking coverage for the technology-media-telecoms sector in China at JP Morgan. He worked with Chinese internet clients such as Vipshop, Jumei, Baidu and Tencent during his 10-year service with JP Morgan.
Lu joined the bank two months before Diao as head of equities, also a newly created role to coordinate various functions in the bank’s equities businesses, including equity sales, research, trading and syndicate. The move was part of China Renaissance’s plan to step up its equity business which is still at the early stage, and to eventually become a full-service investment bank.
Under Lu’s leadership, the bank has built up an equity team “from nothing” to about 15 people in Hong Kong and New York, according to one person familiar with the issue.
Prior to China Renaissance, Lu was with China Life Franklin Asset Management, the first overseas asset management company established by a Chinese state-owned insurer, where she acted as deputy chief executive. Before that, she worked at Blackrock Asset, GDC Holdings, Deutsche Bank and Nomura.
Set up in 2004, China Renaissance is one of the fastest-developing Chinese boutique investment banks and has been snapping up senior bankers from its Western rivals in recent years. It poached Jason Lam and Kevin Xie from Credit Suisse and Jeremy Choy from JP Morgan.
That leaves China Rennaissance at the vanguard of a broader emerging trend in which Chinese financial institutions begin seeking out senior banker hires with Western banking experience.
Ambitious
The founder and chief executive officer Bao Fan told FinanceAsia in an interview in November that “China Renaissance’s ambition is definitely not to remain a boutique operation.”
It employed 250 people as of late last year with offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and New York. It had just 100 staff in 2014.
By combining senior bankers with rich experience at Western banking heavyweights with local staff with strong ties to the country’s start-up community, China Renaissance is fast becoming a major player in China’s most buoyant sectors, notably TMT, providing advisory on finance and initial public offerings as well as on mergers and acquisitions.
For instance, it advised on several billion-dollar transactions last year, including the $9.1 billion privatisation of Qihoo 360, the largest privatisation yet of a US- listed Chinese company, and the merger of Meituan and Dianping, which created the country’s largest online-to-offline platform.
