They grew up during China’s Cultural Revolution, when Mao Zedong’s brutal political campaigns in the 1960’s and 1970’s tore apart families, pitting children against their parents and husbands against their wives. Today, they are some of the most powerful deal makers in China, a group of rich and politically astute investment bankers who are helping transform China’s economy and restructuring some of its biggest corporations.
Every major investment bank now has a Chinese-born star banker: Goldman Sachs has Fang Fenglei; Merrill Lynch has Erhfei Liu; Morgan Stanley has Jonathan Zhu; J. P. Morgan has Charles Li; and Citigroup has Wei Christianson.