Morgan Stanley just announced it will be following Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, and Carlyle in their recent forays into China’s booming private equity market by attempting to raise $230 million for its own yuan-dominated private equity fund in the affluent city of Hangzhou. (Lloyd Blankfein, whose mastery of one-upmanship even translates overseas, is aiming for $770 million.) Western banks and buyout firms are turning to yuan funds since China places less restriction on money raised from domestic Chinese investors. Did Wall Street just find another “white elephant, flying pig, and unicorn all at once”? [Reuters, WSJ]
