A private investment fund created last year by billionaire Zhang Yiming – founder of TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance – has received a licence from Hong Kong’s securities regulator to conduct asset management, paving the way for the young entrepreneur to use Hong Kong as a base to manage his wealth.
The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) granted Zhang’s Cool River Venture HK a type 9 licence for asset management on November 21, which allows for activity including real estate investment management and securities and futures contract management, according to an SFC notice.
The company, based in the Central business district at the International Finance Centre, lists Liu Bide and Liu Zhao as responsible officers. The former did not have any other records with the SFC, while the latter was a representative of Barclays Capital Asia from 2013 to 2015.
ByteDance declined to comment. The Post was unable to reach Zhang for comment.
The approval offers a rare glimpse into recent activity from Zhang, who has kept a low profile since he stepped down in 2021 as CEO and chairman of the tech giant he founded in 2012, which has grown into the world’s second most valuable unicorn after Elon Musk’s SpaceX. But he has remained active in corporate strategy and personally overseen the poaching of artificial intelligence professionals from rival companies, as ByteDance bets big on the technology, according to a recent Financial Times report.
