Bao, widely regarded as one of China’s best-connected bankers, went missing in 2023 with little explanation.
Published On 8 Aug 2025
Bao Fan, star dealmaker and founder of boutique investment bank China Renaissance Holdings, has been released more than two years after being detained by Chinese authorities, the Reuters news agency has reported, citing a person with knowledge of the matter.
Bao, widely regarded as one of China’s best-connected bankers, was released from detention earlier this week, the person said on Friday, declining to be identified because the information was not public.
China Renaissance sent shockwaves through the country’s financial sector in 2023 when it announced it was unable to contact Bao, who founded the bank in 2005 with two other men and still owns nearly 49 percent of the company’s issued shares.
He was one of the several high-profile executives in China, mostly from the finance industry, who went missing in recent years with little explanation amid a sweeping anticorruption campaign spearheaded by President Xi Jinping.
His disappearance rattled professionals in the financial industry in the world’s second-largest economy, as Beijing pressed its campaign to rein in the “lavish lifestyle” of the “financial elite”.
His release comes as Beijing seeks to boost business confidence, particularly among the country’s tech entrepreneurs, whose businesses have suffered from a years-long crackdown.
China is looking to boost confidence in the private sector, which has been reeling from weak domestic consumption and a prolonged debt crisis in the property sector, against a broader backdrop of heightened trade tensions with the United States.
“This is certainly a positive si