TPG Capital bags Bain MD for China team

HONG KONG: TPG Capital has hired one of Bain Capital's Chinese dealmakers as competition for deals and the players who source them heats up in China's booming private equity market, sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

Jingsheng Huang, a Shanghai-based managing director who had been with Bain since 2005, will start in his new role in late August, said one of the sources, who declined to be named because the matter was not yet public.

TPG has been on the hunt for senior partners after losing two of its top dealmakers, Mary Ma and senior partner Weijian Shan, who both left to set up their own funds.

The firm is raising two 5 billion yuan ($774 million) funds, in Shanghai and Chongqing, and is looking to build a team of between 12 and 15 to source deals and manage assets in China.

In May, TPG hired Chinese dealmaker Steve Sun, a principal from Goldman Sachs, who is expected to be made a partner.

Huang is also expected to be a partner at TPG and together with Sun is joining a China team that includes Sing Wang, a former Goldman executive, and Ricky Lau.

As China's private equity industry grows, a series of high-profile Chinese private equity executives have quit global firms and joined start-up China-focused funds, even as Blackstone Group , Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co and TPG have raised their own China funds.

Mary Ma left TPG earlier this year to set up Boyu Capital and is raising a fund of around $1 billion with Sean Tong, previously a managing director with Providence Equity Partners, and Louis Cheung, outgoing CEO of Ping An Group .

Weijian Shan, meanwhile, is said to be raising a $2 billion-plus fund with Pacific Alliance Group.

Huang had joined Bain from Softbank Asia Infrastructure Fund (SAIF), where he was managing director for China, according to information on Bain Capital's website.

Huang declined to comment when reached by phone. Bain and TPG declined to comment.

Copyright Reuters, 2011