Rise of a Chinese investment bank

[HONG KONG] WHEN Alan Guo was chief strategist at Google China, he would occasionally have leisurely conversations with Fan Bao, a Beijing banker, exchanging ideas about the future of the Internet in China and swapping gossip about industry personalities. Mr Bao, who had been a strategist at a Chinese technology company before setting up his own boutique investment bank in 2004, would occasionally prod Mr Guo about his plans.

"I asked him why he was still working for Google and not as an entrepreneur," Mr Bao recalled in a recent interview. "He didn't say anything, but was giving the knowing smile. That moment I knew he had already caught the bug and would launch his startup one day."

His guess proved correct and he later helped Mr Guo raise money for his startup, an online retailer called LightInTheBox. When Mr Guo decided to take the company public last year, Mr Bao's bank, the China Renaissance Group, was his first choice for the deal, even though the firm had never worked on an initial public offering (IPO) before.