Ricky Lau
Ricky Lau is a Managing Partner of Crane Capital, a regional real estate private equity company with US$1.4 billion commitment, which he co-founded in 2019. Prior to Crane, Mr. Lau served as Partner and Co-Head of China for TPG Capital Asia. During his 21-year career in TPG, he worked on all of TPG's major investments completed in China. Some of the distinguished investments include Wharf Telecom, lenovo, Kerry Properties, Shenzhen Development Bank, China Grand Auto, Daphne, CICC, Shanghai White Rabbit, and Xuzhou Wei Wei. Mr. Lau is one of the most experienced senior members in TPG Asia serving on its investment committee. He joined Newbridge Capital (merged with TPG Capital in 2006) in 1998 as an Assistant Vice President and was progressively promoted to Partner in charge of China. As the Co-Head for China, Mr. Lau was in charge of sourcing, evaluating, negotiating, overseeing private equity investments in the region. He led the investments in Wharf Telecom, Hong Kong’s #2 corporate telecom services provider, China Grand Auto, the largest auto service platform in China and was also part of three-member team that negotiated and completed the landmark investment Shenzhen Development Bank, the only foreign control investment in a nationwide bank, in 2004. Before this, he also completed investment in HiChina (the leading domain name registration company in China), Kerry Properties (the leading luxury property developer in Hong Kong/China, Shanghai White Rabbit (leading Chinese candy manufacturer), Xuzhou VV Food and Beverage (leading soymilk powder manufacturer). Mr. Lau was also part of the team raising three of TPG Asia’s funds. Before joining TPG, Mr. Lau was responsible for the corporate and project finance division of Hopewell Holdings, a regional power and infrastructure project developer. He joined Hopewell in 1993 and spearheaded the development and financing of several power and transportation projects in China, India and Thailand. Mr. Lau completed Kellogg-HKUST Executive MBA in 2009 and was elected class representative. Before returning to Hong Kong, he studied in Canada and graduated with honors from the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 1992.