In the early 1990s, Donald Tang was sent to Hong Kong to open an office for Bear Stearns, the US securities firm. It was a heady time: China had just discovered the capitalist practice of publicly listing shares and the Shenzhen and Shanghai stock markets were in their infancy. Competition to sell shares in Chinese companies was fierce.

Mr Tang wanted his share of the business. He had grown up in mainland China, studied in the US, and upon graduation landed on Wall Street, which was succumbing to China fever. Unlike many other mainland Chinese who were joining big investment houses, however, Mr Tang lacked a pedigree.

That was not a problem at Bear Stearns, which took pride in its scrappy, outsider image. Jimmy Cayne, Bear’s chief executive, thought Mr Tang had the hungry, determined quality of people who thrived at Bear.