According to his company, one of China’s most prominent billionaire bankers has vanished.

As of Thursday’s market update, China Renaissance Holdings still hadn’t been able to get in touch with CEO Bao Fan. Mr. Bao is a prominent Chinese deal broker whose clientele includes major digital firms like Didi and Meituan.

His company’s declaration has reignited worries of a Beijing crackdown on financial and technological elites.

In a letter to shareholders on Friday, the investment business said it had “failed to fully contact Mr. Bao Fan,” which caused the stock price to drop sharply.

The board also stated that it has “no evidence that indicates that Mr. Bao’s absence is or could be linked to the business and/or activities of the group.”

China Renaissance directed the BBC to its alert to the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong when it was asked for comment.

The business did not say how long Mr. Bao had been gone. There has been no contact with him for two days, according to sources quoted by the Chinese business newswire Caixin.

The president of the company, identified as Cong Lin, was reportedly arrested by authorities in September related to his prior employment at the state-owned ICBC bank, as reported by the business wire.

The China Renaissance website has been silent on Mr. Cong’s predicament. Neither the company’s website nor the most recent interim report shows him as an executive anymore.

Mr. Bao’s absence, as one of China’s most prominent IT investors, has revived a long-standing mystery surrounding the whereabouts of Chinese business leaders.

According to Forbes Magazine, at least half a dozen billionaires have vanished for extended periods of time in recent years after alleged run-ins with the Communist Party.

Multiple incidents suggested they were caught up in probes into wrongdoing, tax evasion, or corruption.

Fosun Group founder Guo Guangchang, nicknamed “the Warren Buffet of China,” mysteriously disappeared for multiple days in 2015.

It was also in 2017 when the life of Chinese-Canadian businessman Xiao Jianhua was taken. Last year, he was one of the wealthiest people in China, but he was arrested on charges of corruption and spent the rest of his life in prison.

Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, went missing for three months in late 2020 after making remarks critical of market regulators. In all likelihood, he would have become China’s wealthiest person had his digital payments company, Ant Financial, gone public as planned.

Mr. Bao is widely regarded as a leading figure in the Chinese internet industry because of the deals he has made that have influenced the country’s booming consumer-based online market. After working in banking for Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, he started China Renaissance in 2005.

It was his firm that orchestrated several historic mergers, including Didi and Kuaidi, 58.com and Ganji for advertising, and Meituan and Dianping for food delivery. Tencent also made a strategic investment in JD.com.

Didi’s listing on the New York Stock Exchange is scheduled for 2021, and China Renaissance has also guided the initial public offerings of e-commerce firms JD.com and Kuashou.

Mr. Bao said in a 2018 piece that his firm has “crossed paths” with 70% of the online firms recognized by the Chinese people.