Ant Financial Said to Hire Deutsche Banker to Run New Fund

(Bloomberg) -- Billionaire Jack Ma’s Ant Financial has hired a senior banker from Deutsche Bank AG to join its investment team, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Wu Xiaopin, most recently Deutsche’s head of China equity capital markets, has joined Ant as a managing director, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. Wu will later become managing partner of a newly set-up investment fund, one of the people said.

The Chinese financial services giant is looking for deals to build its presence abroad, acquiring technology and investing in local payment services in Southeast Asia, Korea and India. It raised about $14 billion in its latest private funding round from investors including Warburg Pincus, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Silver Lake and Singapore’s Temasek Holdings Pte.

Ant, formally known as Zhejiang Ant Small & Micro Financial Services Group Co., declined to comment. Bloomberg News reported last month that Wu is leaving Deutsche Bank.

Wu joined Deutsche Bank in 2011 from Citigroup Inc., according to her LinkedIn profile. Deutsche Bank was among arrangers for Ant’s latest fundraising alongside Citigroup, China International Capital Corp., Citic Securities Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley.

Apart from running its payment platform and offering other financial services, Ant has also been an active investor. It recently committed to be a cornerstone buyer in the Hong Kong initial public offering of China Renaissance Holdings Ltd., a boutique investment bank that’s worked with many of the country’s top startups, according to a prospectus.

(A previous version of this story was corrected to show that Deutsche hasn’t confirmed Wu’s departure.)

To contact the reporters on this story: Crystal Tse in Hong Kong at ctse44@bloomberg.net;Lulu Yilun Chen in Hong Kong at ychen447@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Robert Fenner at rfenner@bloomberg.net;Ben Scent at bscent@bloomberg.net

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