Co-founder of Chinese GP Ascendent to leave firm

Sources in the investment community became aware of Zhang’s impending departure towards the end of last year. He is expected to leave within the next few months, the sources said.

Zhang (pictured) founded Ascendent with Liang Meng, who will remain in place as the sole managing partner, working alongside four managing directors, two of whom have been with the firm since its inception. Meng and Zhang met when advising CNOOC on the attempted acquisition of Unocal in 2005 – Meng was leading J.P. Morgan’s M&A team and Zhang was on the capital markets side at Goldman Sachs.

Meng went on to lead D.E. Shaw's Greater China investment business while Zhang worked for Trustbridge Partners, another middle-market GP. They joined forces in 2011 with a view to bringing what has been described as a merchant banking-style approach to private equity, providing companies with capital in conjunction with advice and solutions.

Ascendent closed its debut fund at $365 million in 2012 and backed companies such as WH Group and Nano Resources, both of which subsequently went public. The firm closed its second fund at the hard cap of $600 million in mid-2015 after less than five months in the market.

Healthcare and education are prominent themes in Fund II – as they were in Fund I – with the firm investing in companies such drug developers BioChain Beijing and SciClone Pharmaceuticals as well as kindergarten operator RYB Education. The latter business raised $144.3 million through an IPO in the US last September, enabling Ascendent to make a partial exit.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• People
• GPs
• China
• Ascendent Capital
• Appointments