Michael Chow, JAFCO Asia (China), Managing Director & Co-Head of China (North)

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		Based in Beijing, Mr. Chow is currently the Co-Head of China for JAFCO Asia, responsible for investment activities primarily in the Northern part of China. He is also a member of the Investment Committee of JAFCO Asia that spans its investment activities across Asia (ex-Japan). He currently sits on a number of boards of Chinese companies including ChinaCache, GolferPass, Incesoft Technology, Cgogo Technology and Hisoft Technology. Mr Chow was responsible for making the investment in 3721 in 2002 which was subsequently sold to Yahoo! for a valuation of about US$100 million. He was instrumental in steering the company’s growth as well as its eventual sale. 3721 was merged into Yahoo! China, which itself was subsequently integrated into the Alibaba Group later. Prior to joining JAFCO Asia, Mr Chow was a Assistant Principal with Capital Z Asia Limited. Capital Z Asia was a private equity fund manager with its headquarter in New York that manages a global fund of US$3.5 billion, making both fund-on-fund investments and direct investments worldwide. Mr Chow was on the direct investment side, responsible for making private equity investments in Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore and Indonesia then. Prior to joining Capital Z Asia, Mr Chow was an Investment Manager at the direct investment arm of the Peregrine Investment Group. Based in Hong Kong, he was responsible for the management of a Greater China fund called ICC (“The Investment Company of China”) that the Peregrine Group had sponsored and invested in, alongside other leading global institutional investors such as Soros Fund Management and the Search Group. ICC was focused on investing in both the real estate and manufacturing sector then. Besides working on ICC, he also participated in making investments for the Peregrine Group itself in China, Taiwan, Thailand and the Philippines. Prior to joining Peregrine, Mr Chow worked as a Finance Manager at the manufacturing and retailing arm of the Hutchison Whampoa Group in both Hong Kong and Shanghai, where he was based for 2 years. Mr Chow was born in Hong Kong but grew up in Singapore where he had lived for almost 10 years. He obtained a Bachelor (Hons) degree in Business Studies from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 1990 after returning from Singapore. He is a CFA Charterholder and a CPA (Fellow member) of both the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants in the UK (ACCA) as well as the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (HKICPA).