D. E. Shaw Reportedly in Talks to Buy Large Stake in China’s TEDA

David E. Shaw’s $21 billion fund D.E. Shaw is in talks to buy a stake in the Chinese state-controlled investment company Tianjin TEDA International Holding, reports Businessweek. TEDA International oversees the Tianjin city government’s investments, like China Bohai Bank Co. and Tianjin Trust and Investment Co.

D.E. Shaw is in negotiations to buy 15 percent to 20 percent of TEDA International in a deal worth as much as 6 billion yuan ($942 million). If approved, “the investment would be the biggest by a foreign acquirer in China’s financial-services industry since March,” according to Businessweek.

TEDA is the latest of Shaw’s investments to come out of China. Shaw’s fund “bought about $150 million of stock in New China Life Insurance Co.’s initial public offering in Hong Kong this month.”

Shaw has been investing in Asia for over 22 years. Businessweek reports, “More than half of all its employees globally are based in the South Asian nation.” Last year, Shaw relocated Julius Gaudio, who is one of its six executive committee members, to Hong Kong and in May, Shaw announced that it will “start stock-brokerage and private-equity businesses in India with billionaire Mukesh Ambani as demand for financial services grows in the world’s second-fastest growing major economy. The money manager will join with Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd., India’s biggest company by market value, to offer investment banking, derivatives trading and alternate-asset management next year.” Shaw’s first Asian office was opened in 1996 in Hyderabad in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.