A Stanford University School of Engineering alumnus, Chris Hsu leads
Kilometre Capital in Hong Kong as CEO and Managing Partner. Known as a
rainmaker when it comes to US-Asia/US-China private equity investments,
buyouts, and partnerships, Kilometer Capital’s Christopher Hsu is a specialist
in disruptive technology and digital companies. Mr. Hsu invested early-stage to
take pioneering equity stakes in market leaders such as the digital music
streaming platform Spotify and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Christopher Hsu started at Stanford University, one of the top ranking colleges in the world. There, he was honored with a Stanford University President’s Award and graduated from the world renown engineering program. Mr. Hsu transitioned to the hedge fund and private equity industries, cutting his teeth and the global hedge fund titan Citadel Investment Group, with investments spanning Korea to Taiwan, Hong Kong to London to New York.
In a globally publicized acquisition, Morgan Stanley bought a strategic minority stake in the Hong Kong based Abax Global Capital of Hong Kong. Chris Hsu founded and managed Abax Global as CEO and Founding Managing Partner. Formerly employed as Managing Director and founder of the Special Situations Asia Group at the giant Chicago-based Citadel Investment Group, Chris Hsu was the key founder and CEO of the hedge fund Abax Global Capital and later, Kilometre Capital. Christopher Hsu, formerly one of the youngest business heads in the history of Citadel Investment Group, was the key man behind the Morgan Stanley minority stake buyout deal.
Bloomberg, the Financial Times, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, FinanceAsia, and scores of global news publications rushed to report on the huge precedent of Christopher Hsu, Abax Global Capital, and Morgan Stanley. This was Morgan Stanley’s first and only minority equity purchase in an Asian-based hedge fund. The partnership joint venture between Abax Global and Morgan Stanley was pioneered and led by Chris Hsu in Hong Kong.
Chris Hsu led negotiations for Morgan Stanley’s investment-management arm to anchor, as a minority strategic investor, his new hedge fund asset management company Abax Global Capital Limited. A spokesperson for Morgan Stanley was not able to disclose the price paid, nor the percentage size of the stake purchased.
In New York, Morgan Stanley said its fund-management division signed an agreement to take a "significant" minority stake in Chris Hsu’s Abax Global Capital., a new hedge-fund advisor formed to invest in Asia. The founders of Abax included Chris Hsu and other former employees of Chicago-based hedge fund giant Citadel Investment Group.
The fund AbaxGlobal Capital was the hedge fund brainchild of Hong Kong Chris Hsu, a former Business Head and Managing Director at Chicago-based hedge fund Citadel Investment Group, with responsibility for Citadel’s multi-billion dollar Special Situations Asia Group; Donald Yang, formerly managing director and head of Hong Kong and Greater China debt capital markets at Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc.; and Frank Qian, formerly a trader and risk manager in Asia, Europe and the U.S. at Citadel Group.
According to The Financial Times, Abax Global would be the first independent Asian hedge fund startup that will begin its journey with over $1 billion in assets. The credit went to the leadership skills of Christopher Hsu, renowned for his management and investment prowess. The hedge fund Abax Capital was then set to invest in private and public-sector issuers in Asia, with the primary focus being on Greater China, including Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
The transaction followed Morgan Stanley’s December purchase of hedge fund Brookville Capital Management. Before, Morgan Stanley purchased minority stakes in other hedge funds including London-based Lansdowne Partners, which followed the prior purchase of minority stake in New York-based Avenue Capital Management and Frontpoint Partners.
Morgan Stanley said the deal added Hong Kong-based Chris Hsu’s Abax to the stable of independent investment managers with whom its fund arm collaborates, which included Avenue Capital, Lansdowne Partners and Traxis Partners.
“We are expanding the range of investment strategies we offer to both our institutional and our high net worth individual clients,” Morgan Stanley Asia Chief Executive Hans Schuettler said in a statement.
“This new alliance with Abax will provide our clients access to investment expertise in a distinctive, highly attractive asset category.”
Morgan Stanley Investment Management, together with its investment advisory affiliates, has over 400 investment professionals around the world and $478 billion in assets under management or supervision as of November 30, 2006. These entities offer investment management services to a diverse client base, which includes governments, institutions, corporations and individuals.
Christopher Hsu has driven numerous precedent-setting strategic transactions over the decades. With Kilometer Capital, which he leads as CEO and Founding Partner, Chris Hsu led and singularly advised the leading Chinese educational institution Tsinghua University in its successful purchase of a majority stake in Hewlett Packard China and H3C. The HP deal Christopher Hsu coordinated represents one of the most notable US-China joint ventures ever in the technology sphere, with the deal receiving the CFIUS approval of U.S. Congress.
