China International Capital Corp’s (CICC) successful initial public offering (IPO), in addition to signaling renewed interest in Chinese equities after last summer’s crash and lost of confidence, also affirms the return of Bi Mingjian (毕明建), a former employee as new chief executive officer. Bi was previously away from the company for 10 years.
CICC priced its IPO at HK$10.28 per share, the top end of the range and received 4.7x oversubscription in its Hong Kong offering. Shares of the company were actively traded on the first day of listing yesterday, with an intraday high of HK$11.44 each and closed at HK$11.04, representing an increase of approximately 11.28% and 7.39% over its offer price of HK$10.28, respectively.
Bi returned to the company on March 16 2015 after CICC did a global search for a CEO in the wake of the departure of members of the company’s senior management who left voluntarily last year. Their departure was generally attributed to difficulties that have plagued the company and delayed the IPO in the past decade.
His returned was welcomed eagerly by CICC’s existing and former staff who had been profused in their praises for Bi and his capabilities on social media, something uncommon in Chinese companies.
“It’s not common to see such an openness in a company towards its former employee. But it’s understandable for CICC given its strong culture,” according to Wu Xiaoping (吴小平), the former executive general manager of the wealth management department at CICC.
“CICC has a quite unique corporate culture where large numbers of its former employees are still actively setting up WeChat (a mobile instant messaging application developed by Tencent) groups and arranging clubs to keep in touch,” Wu writes in his personal blog.
“The former employees keep in touch with former CICC colleagues. For example, it’s not a surprise to see CICC management go on a business trip to New York or London, and have meals with their former colleagues based there. It feels like a CICC’s internal gathering,” he recalls.
CICC experienced a huge management restructuring last year. It was announced in October 2014 that Jin Liqun (金立群) "no longer" served the role of its chairman of the board, and his position was taken over by Ding Xuedong (丁学东), China Investment Corporation (CIC) chairman and CEO. Jin is now president of the China-backed Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank.
Zhu Yunlai (朱云来), son of China’s former Premier Zhu Rongji (朱镕基) also resigned as CICC president and CEO that month. It was then that CICC launched a global search for a new CEO and ended up hiring Bi.
“The CICC veteran who left ten years ago wins the new appointment. He is highly trusted,” Wu says.
Bi was among CICC's first group of employees and served in the company for over a decade. Before he left, Bi was CICC’s vice president, member of the management committee and co-head of investment banking. Bi also worked for the World Bank before joining CICC previously. After leaving CICC, he worked as a partner for HOPU Investments, a Beijing-based private equity firm.
