China’s PE Trailblazer Hopu Faces Doubts on Returns, Succession

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The firm has focused largely on technology, logistics, consumer and financial services deals in China. Its 2014 investment in warehouse operator Global Logistics Properties — in which Hopu led a $2.5 billion consortium that included Chinese state-owned enterprises — became its defining success. GLP China is preparing for a public listing in 2026, according to the firm’s recent investor letter. 

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But the performance of Hopu’s second flagship fund, which closed in 2014, has been less impressive. As of March 2025, Fund II had delivered a modest 1.19 times its $1.8 billion in invested capital including fees, according to Bloomberg calculations based on figures in an internal document. It has returned more than 60% of investors’ cash after generating profits on 12 of its 19 investments, the document showed. 

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Its performance was dragged down by a $310 million investment in New Age African Global Energy Ltd., an oil and gas company that the fund has largely written off, according to the document. Hopu’s Fund III also invested $50 million in New Age. 

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One of the original managers of Fund III was Lau Teck Sien, a Temasek alum. Lau was also Hopu’s chief investment officer, but he disagreed with Fang over the timing of investment exits and was sidelined, according to people familiar with the matter. Fang in 2018 recruited Lee Zhang, a former Asia head of Deutsche Bank AG and ex-senior executive at Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd., and made Zhang Hopu’s co-chairman. 

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Frictions grew when Lau and another then-Hopu partner Cliff Chau, a former CIC managing director, explored carving out a separate pool of partners’ capital for Fang to invest from Beijing — instead of having him deploy clients’ money in ways that could affect the performance of Hopu’s flagship vehicles, according to people familiar. 

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Fang pushed back, and in 2021 tried to pressure Lau and Chau into signing documents that would hand him management control, the people said. The duo then told staffers during a conference call that Fang would be removed from decision-making to safeguard the fund, the people familiar added.

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The internal dispute was eventually settled privately. After years of tension, Lau and Chau left Hopu in 2023. That year, Chinese authorities opened a graft investigation into Zhang in connection with his time at ICBC. He was prosecuted in 2024 and subsequently sentenced to death, with a two-year reprieve that could change the sentence to life imprisonment.

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With the top leaders gone, Hamm gained full control to steer Hopu. 

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The firm’s investment team, which had peaked at 49 individuals at the end of 2021, shrank by roughly half as Hopu moved away from venture capital and other strategies to focus on buyouts through its main fund. All the managing directors on that team have either quit or were forced out in the past two years, according to people familiar with the matter. 

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New Hires

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The investment team has since grown to 36 people following 11 hires in 2025, according to the firm. Hopu said its overall headcount stands at 80, close to the level of a few years ago. Many of the recent additions were junior hires, according to the people familiar. 

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Whenever there is new leadership, “you are always going to try to add people and there will inevitably be some people who are asked to leave or choose to leave. I don’t view that as a problem per se,” Hamm said. Several young partners he hired since 2023 have helped fill the void left by the old guard, with three of them responsible for finance, operations and compliance. 

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People who have worked closely with Hamm said he is hard-charging, meticulous and works long hours, sometimes doing portfolio reviews on weekends. Junior staffers routinely prepare client-meeting scripts for him that include greetings, data points, recaps and negotiation lines in short and long formats, the people said. During one client meeting a few years back, Hamm introduced himself as Fang’s son-in-law, which struck the investor as odd, according to that individual.