CDH Investments

Wu Shangzhi, the firm's founder and chairman, oversees overall investment strategy and firm direction. Jiao Zhen serves as CEO and participates in major investment committee decisions. CDH operates a partnership model where senior dealmakers across each strategy — buyout, growth, venture, mezzanine, and public securities — lead transaction origination and execution, with investment committees reviewing deals at the fund level.

CDH operates five principal investment strategies under one partnership: buyout, growth equity, venture capital, mezzanine debt, and public securities. The venture and growth capital arm, CDH VGC, functions as a distinct platform with its own fund vehicles and investment teams, focusing on early-stage and growth-stage technology and healthcare companies. The firm also operates CDH Wealth Management, which serves domestic Chinese high-net-worth individuals with RMB-denominated products.

CDH primarily makes direct investments rather than committing capital to third-party funds. The firm's venture and growth arm, CDH VGC, invests directly into portfolio companies. On the buyout side, CDH leads or co-leads consortium deals, occasionally partnering with other private equity firms — as it did in the $6.8 billion take-private of Belle International alongside Hillhouse Capital. The firm does not operate a fund-of-funds program.

Wu Shangzhi led a management buyout of CICC's direct investment department in 2002, taking the team and its portfolio into an independent partnership called CDH Investments. While CDH operates independently and has no formal ties to CICC today, several of its founding partners — including Wu Shangzhi and Jiao Zhen — were senior CICC executives. CICC itself later re-entered private equity through its CICC Capital platform, creating a competitive dynamic between the two firms.