Zhong Ou Asset Management (Zhong Ou; ) is a Chinese asset management company founded in 2006. It is headquartered in Shanghai, China.
Background
The company was originally founded in July 2006 as Lombarda China Fund Management, a three-way joint venture (JV) between Banca Lombarda e Piemontese (49%), Guodu Securities (47%) and Pingdingshan Coal Group (4%). According to Luca Frontini who was then-CEO of Lombarda China, the decision was made as Banca Lombarda was looking for the next growth opportunity and wanted to have more international presence. The deal took only nine months.[2][3]
In May 2008, Lombarda China shareholders voted to remove Frontini as CEO. His departure came as a surprise to many as he was among the few recognizable foreigners running a Chinese fund house. An industry source suggested Frontini may have been a victim of a clash between shareholders due to a trend of increasing tensions between foreign and domestic owners of Sino-foreign joint ventures. While tensions were less common during bull markets, due to the 2008 financial crisis, the company at the time had experienced a decline of 20% of its