Fang Fang (方方), JPMorgan Chase & Co’s chief executive officer of investment banking for China, is leaving after more than 12 years at the firm.
The 48-year-old banker told New York-based JPMorgan that he wanted to retire, according to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg News yesterday. Frank Gong (龔方雄) was named chairman of China investment banking in the message from Therese Esperdy, co-head of Asia-Pacific banking at the firm.
Fang’s impending departure comes amid an investigation into JPMorgan’s Asian hiring practices. US authorities are examining whether the firm employed people in Asia so that their relatives in government would steer business to the bank, people with knowledge of the probes have said.
Photo: Bloomberg
Fang joined JPMorgan in August 2001 and was a former vice president of Beijing Enterprises Holdings Ltd (北京控股), an investment company controlled by the government of China’s capital. He became head of JPMorgan’s China investment-banking business in 2007 and was made vice chairman for Asia investment banking in 2009.
The banker submitted his resignation last week as he wants to spend more time with his family, a person with knowledge of the matter said.
US prosecutors were given e-mails written by Fang in which the banker supported the hiring of China Everbright Group (中國光大集團) chairman Tang Shuangning’s (唐雙寧) son, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, citing people it did not identify. Those e-mails also highlighted the potential for doing business with the Chinese state-backed conglomerate, the newspaper said.
Fang, who has become a key figure for US investigators, has not been accused of any wrongdoing, the Journal said.
JPMorgan, which was the world’s biggest investment bank by fees last year, said in August that the US Securities and Exchange Commission had sought information on its employment of certain people in Hong Kong, and client relationships. The bank has not been charged with any wrongdoing.
The SEC has also asked several other global investment banks for information about their hiring practices, according to four people familiar with the matter.
The probes have posed hurdles to JPMorgan’s involvement in at least two recent investment-banking transactions.
The bank decided to quit China Everbright Bank Co’s Hong Kong share sale in November last year because the investigation delayed an internal approval process, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
The US$3 billion deal was the largest first-time offering by any company in Hong Kong last year.
In January, JPMorgan bowed out of Tianhe Chemicals Group’s (天合化工) IPO as questions arose over the firm’s previous employment of the daughter of Tianhe’s chairman, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. She left the bank in August of last year, one of the people said.
Regulators are probing the hirings to determine whether JPMorgan violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, which makes it illegal to provide payments or benefits to government officials to win business.
Investigators questioned Gaby Abdelnour, JPMorgan’s former Asia-Pacific head, about his knowledge of the firm’s hiring program, a person briefed on the matter said two months ago. Abdelnour has not been accused of wrongdoing.
The banker, who stepped down at JPMorgan in 2012 and later worked as a senior adviser at Bain Capital LLC, was met by FBI agents while traveling through a New York-area airport late last year and then interviewed, said the person.
Abdelnour had been appointed in July 2006 to run JPMorgan’s Asia-Pacific business from Hong Kong, reporting to then-investment bank co-heads Steven Black and William Winters.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure