Fosun Investment Head to Manage Europe Insurer Investments

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Fosun Group, China’s biggest closely- held conglomerate, hired Hong Kong’s best-performing bond fund manager from Bocom International Holdings Co. to manage investments for its European insurers.

Tongli Han, 36, will be the global chief investment officer for fixed income at Fosun, he said in a phone interview from Hong Kong. Han was the head of fixed income-asset management at Bocom, where he managed the global strategic emerging markets bond fund, top ranked among 126 Hong Kong-domiciled funds over the past year with a 9.1 percent return, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Kate Zhao, a New York-based spokeswoman for Fosun, declined to comment in an e-mailed message.

“I’ve been looking for an anchor to develop my career long term,” Han said. “Fosun has global investments.”

Fosun International Ltd., Fosun’s investment arm, is considering making more bets on insurers outside its home country, such as in Europe and Japan, Chief Executive Officer Liang Xinjun said last month. Liang and billionaire Guo Guangchang are among Fosun’s founders.

Han, who will start at Fosun next week, has an MBA from New York University and previously worked as a portfolio manager at Pacific Investment Management Co., the $2 trillion asset manager that’s reeling from the sudden departure last month of its co- founder Bill Gross.

Fosun bought an 80 percent stake in the insurance unit of Portugal’s Caixa Geral de Depositos SA this year for about 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion). The Shanghai-based company also owns a Hong Kong reinsurer, a life-insurance venture in China with Prudential Financial Inc., and a stake in a property- casualty operation in the country. In August, Fosun agreed to buy 20 percent of specialty commercial insurer Ironshore Inc. for about $460 million.

–With assistance from Zijing Wu in Hong Kong.