A decade ago, Fred Hu was the consummate Goldman Sachs rainmaker. As China head of investment banking, he was responsible for delivering some of the deals that placed Goldman at the pinnacle of the industry at that time.
Goldman staff still talk about many of them today, like the billions the bank made on its private equity stake in ICBC ahead of its October 2006 IPO and its co-sponsor role on the Bank of China international listing the same year. For top-tier clients, such as Ping An and Bank of Communications, Hu was the point man with the relationships and the ability to talk them into doing business with him.
It is no surprise that he eventually opted to go it alone, founding Primavera Capital in Beijing in 2010. Alongside him as partners were several other Goldman alumni: Haitao Zhai, a former managing director responsible for Goldman’s relationships with many governmental and financial institutions on the mainland, as well as director of the office for cooperation with ICBC; Kenneth Wong, another managing director in the investment banking division; and William Wang, who was an MD in the principal investment team.
