He made a name for himself

The 52-year-old tech billionaire has been missing without trace in China for more than a week. As a young man, he learned Norwegian and started at BI Business School.

“If you don’t know Bao Fan, you haven’t.” she says in the Chinese technology industry. Bao Fan is the principal, founder and principal owner of China Renaissance. The bank has funded much of China’s tech industry.

In 2015, Pao was ranked 22nd on Bloomberg’s “50 Most Influential People” list.

Rumors of the disappearance of the tech billionaire began on February 14 this year. According to The New York Times. Three days later, confirmation came. Then “China Renaissance” wrote in a stock announcement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that “they are unable to contact the principal.”

At the same time, Chinese media reported that Bao had been summoned by the authorities. He was supposed to help investigate a former senior executive in his company, Writes E24.

He was in the reading room the most

If we go back to the 90s, Bao Fan was a “normal” student. Pictured in the school catalog from the 1992/1993 school year, the fan smiles sweetly at the camera:

He is about 20 years old and studying at the BI Business School, which was located at that time in Sandvika in Bærum. Bau moved to Norway to obtain a civil economics degree for four years there. One of those who went with him was Carr Martin Granrod.

– I spoke to him sometimes between lectures. He was a nice friend, Granrod says, and continues:

He made a name for himself by asking the lecturers the toughest questions. He was a very smart man.

Granerud recalled that Bao spent more time in the reading room than most and rarely attended social events.

– I remember meeting him once in a student basement in four years. He may have visited many times, but it was easier to find him in the reading room. Nor was he active in any of the student committees, as far as I can remember.

Granerud does not know why Pau chose to study in Norway. But the Chinese had studied Norwegian before he started school, so they spoke Norwegian together.

Granerud remembers one conversation well. Bao is said to have said that his father was the head of a railway company in China. Then Granrod asked, maybe he had quite a few employees. Yes, several million, Fan is said to have responded.

– The conditions in China were slightly greater than in Norway.

There was no indication during his studies that school-loving Bao Fan would become a successful tech billionaire. But he got very good jobs in international brokerage houses after his studies.

Granerud has read stories about him in the international media in recent years, but they haven’t had any contact since their school days.

Not the only one who disappeared

Bao is one of several top Chinese executives who have disappeared from public view in the past decade while being investigated by Chinese authorities.

Jack Ma is perhaps the most famous. He founded the Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba. He has been kept out of the public eye for nearly two years after he criticized the Chinese financial system.

Hans-Jürgen Jasmeyer is a senior researcher at the Norwegian Foreign Policy Institute (Nupi). According to him, it is special that the leader who disappears does not send any signals at all, as in the case of Bao Fan.

What many other managers have done is say they need a private break, that they should focus on other things and leave the leadership to others, he says.

Gåsemyr explains that there are several reasons for the “disappearance” of managers in China. Sometimes this happens at the same time as they are called for interviews or questioning.

Managers may know that there are ongoing cases or ratings against them by the authorities, and that they will be low because of this. Other stakeholders may ask them to keep a low profile, or the personal pressure becomes so great that they have to take a break.

In some cases, people can be placed under house arrest or restricted by the normal legal system, according to Gasmeir. But he believes that this is not the most likely explanation.