After conquering Chinese online retail and carving out strong positions in sectors ranging from mobile payments to movie ticketing, Alibaba Group Holding founder Jack Ma Yun is quietly making his presence felt in the Hong Kong investment banking world even as his ambitions of buying U.S. funds transfer service MoneyGram International have fallen apart.
Yunfeng Financial Group, backed by Ma, is showing promise of radically changing the way brokerages do business in Asia's top financial center via technology, a long-expected transformation that is finally taking shape. Via his own private equity fund, Ma in 2015 bought 11% of Reorient Group, an investment bank founded by Johnson Ko, who had built a reputation as a terrific stock picker with a nose for value. Ko still maintains a 9% stake while David Yu Feng, another partner, controls 26%. Reorient has been recast as Yunfeng Financial Group, combining the Chinese personal names of Ma and Yu.
