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The senior Nomura banker has been allowed to leave mainland China after being banned from doing so last year amid an investigation into technology dealmaker Bao Fan.
Nomura International’s head of China investment banking, Charles Wang Jong-ho, has returned to his previous base in Hong Kong, three people with knowledge of the matter said.
One of the people, a banker who met Mr. Wang recently, said Mr. Wang is now spending time back in Hong Kong, adding, “I think he’s doing pretty well.” It was unclear when the travel ban was lifted, but two of the people said it was within the last few months. The Financial Times first reported Mr. Wang’s travel ban in September.
The imposition of exit bans on officials like Wang last year at a time when confidence in China’s business environment was already low sent shivers through Hong Kong’s financial community, where banks and other multinational companies depend on their executives being able to travel in and out of mainland China.
Wang did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on LinkedIn. Nomura declined to comment. China’s foreign ministry did not immediately comment.
The U.S. State Department has advised people to reconsider traveling to China “due to arbitrary enforcement of local laws, including exit bans.”
The Financial Times reported in September that Wang was banned from leaving the country after visiting mainland China. While the exit ban was in place, Wang was allowed to travel within mainland China and was not detained.
In a social media post from Wang on Sept. 13 and reviewed by the Financial Times, the banker said he was traveling in China’s western province of Qinghai.
News of Wang’s travel ban came months after Bao, the founder of investment group China Renaissance and a former banker at Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, went missing in February 2023. China Renaissance said later that month that Bao was “cooperating with the investigation” of Chinese authorities.
Two people familiar with the matter said last year that Wang’s travel ban was linked to his time at state-run Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, where he worked at the same time as Lin Cong, a former senior executive at China Renaissance. In 2022, the China Securities Regulatory Commission summoned Lin Cong for “supervisory consultations” after which he was reportedly detained.
Bao and Kong could not be reached for comment.
Wang previously worked at ICBC International and Deutsche Bank before joining Nomura in 2018, according to his LinkedIn page. He moved to Hong Kong in 1996 after working on Wall Street.
China has a history of detaining senior businessmen and government officials without cause.
