Who We Are
ShoreVest Partners specializes in Chinese opportunistic credit (generally with first lien protection on cash-flowing real estate).
The ShoreVest team has managed over US$2 billion in distressed debt and special situations in China, on behalf of institutional investors including sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, foundations, endowments and family offices from around the globe.
18-year track record of consistent returns.
Scalable and repeatable strategy across market cycles.
Solution provider in the world’s second largest credit market.
We leverage these core competencies to source and extract returns in the rapidly increasing opportunity set.
Vision & Principles
ShoreVest’s vision is to deliver consistent returns in Chinese distressed debt and opportunistic credit investments by maintaining a long-term platform with the unique capability to:
Source proprietary opportunities, information and exit channels not broadly available to the market.
Apply disciplined analysis to each opportunity, with a focus on downside protection (usually in the form of first-lien claims on real estate collateral)
Uphold the highest ethical standards and proper alignment of interests with our investors during this process.
At the end of the day, our business is a human business, centered on relationships of trust with both the networks that provide us opportunities, and the investors that entrust us with their capital.
Read Our Publication Here
Investment Strategy
As the second largest credit market in the world, China presents ShoreVest with a massive market in opportunistic credit. The country’s decelerating economic growth, misallocations of capital (including credit booms that create NPLs), and the natural evolution of an emerging credit system all contribute to a credit market that is laden with attractive private credit opportunities. As China comes to terms with the consequences of its unprecedented 2008-2010 lending binge and the later shadow banking credit expansion (with subsequent government regulations shrinking the shadow banking market), the need for private credit has increased and the amount of NPLs in China has been growing at an alarming rate every quarter since 2014.
In this environment, the universe of investment opportunities has expanded rapidly across all areas of our core competencies, including NPLs, asset-backed lending, and other opportunistic credit investments. In view of the evolving market, ShoreVest is able to actively focus on whichever areas of opportunistic private credit become the most attractive in a given phase of the cycle. When sourcing deals, ShoreVest is active in exploring innovative approaches to work with borrowers and NPL sellers, focusing on securing deals at value pricing, while also providing borrowers and sellers with solutions.
As China’s debt capital markets further develop, opportunities across the risk curve will continue to arise. ShoreVest is well positioned to predictively source and participate in all of these credit opportunities over time as they emerge.
Strategy Allocation
Distressed Debt
(Generally senior secured NPLs)
Acquired as portfolios with large numbers of corporate obligors (hundreds to thousands of borrowers/loans) from Chinese banks or the four asset management companies (China’s “bad banks”).
Opportunistic Credit Investments
(Special situations & performing debt)
Sourced through our vast network in China’s banking system, every opportunistic credit investment is underwritten focusing on the liquidation value of enforceable collateral.
Read more about China Debt Dynamics
Team
ShoreVest’s team includes many of the most senior professionals in China’s opportunistic and distressed credit markets, and a shared goal to build China’s most globally respected private credit platform. ShoreVest Partners believe the stronger and more balanced our team is, the higher the probability of greater investment outcomes for our investors.
When it comes to Chinese distressed debt, it is our belief that there is no platform in the world with the depth of experience as the ShoreVest Partner’s team. ShoreVest expects the best from our colleagues, in both ethics and performance, and we provide an alignment of incentives that encourages this result.
Benjamin Fanger
Benjamin Fanger is the Managing Partner and founder of ShoreVest Partners and is one of the pioneering investors in China’s credit markets. He has managed approximately $2 billion in Chinese distressed debt and special situations investments, and sits on ShoreVest’s Investment Committee. In 2004, Mr. Fanger was one of the founders of Shoreline Capital and architected the firm and its strategies. In over a decade of Chinese distressed experience, Mr. Fanger has been involved in sourcing, analysis, negotiation, restructuring and liquidation related to acquiring and disposing countless distressed assets in China. He has worked directly with Chinese distressed asset sellers, borrowers, judges, and government officials related to the investments. Prior to co-founding Shoreline Capital and ShoreVest Partners, Mr. Fanger started several companies, two of which he sold to public companies. During graduate school, he also worked at the law firm O’Melveny & Myers on early Chinese distressed debt and private equity transactions. Mr. Fanger has been fluent in spoken and written Chinese for over twenty years. He also holds a JD and MBA from the University of Chicago and is a licensed attorney in the State of California.
Mecy Mei
Ms. Mei is a Partner at ShoreVest. She also sits on the Firm’s Investment Committee. Prior to ShoreVest, she was a Partner at Shoreline Capital where she served for eight years. Her investment experience includes both Chinese private credit special situation investments and non-performing loans. Ms. Mei led her team of investment professionals to the successful completion of the entire process, from deal sourcing, due diligence, deal structure to acquisition/negotiation and monitoring and exits. Prior to ShoreVest and Shoreline Capital, Ms. Mei worked at Morningstar as a fund analyst where she focused on fund strategy analysis. In that capacity Ms. Mei worked closely with outside clients in creating portfolios of debt and equity in China. Ms. Mei is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Hefei University of Technology and a master’s degree in economics from Nanjing University.
Hui Zheng
Ms. Zheng is a Partner at ShoreVest. She holds a seat on the Firm’s Investment Committee. Prior to ShoreVest, she was a Partner at Shoreline Capital, where she worked for eight years. Her investment track record includes entry-to-exit management of both Chinese private credit special situation investments and non-performing loans. Ms. Zheng leads her team of investment professionals to the successful completion of the entire process, from deal sourcing, due diligence, deal structure to acquisition/negotiation and monitoring and exits. Prior to ShoreVest and Shoreline, Ms. Zheng was involved in the liquidation of non-performing loan assets when she was with a Guangdong law firm as an attorney. Ms. Zheng has published several papers including “Negative Impacts the New Bankruptcy Law has on the Liquidation of Non-performing Assets.” She holds a law degree from Nanchang University of Law and holds an LLM in Foreign Economic Law from Sun Yat-sen University School of Law.
Michael Chang
Michael Chang is a Partner and the Chief Operating Officer at ShoreVest. In this role, Mr. Chang handles coordination between ShoreVest’s human resources, information technology, finance, and compliance departments. He brings over a decade of experience in investment management in the United States and Asia, having worked at Stamos Capital Partners, Bridgewater Associates, and Cambridge Associates. He holds an MBA from MIT Sloan and a BA from Stanford University.
Cathy Chen
Ms. Chen is a Senior Legal Counsel at ShoreVest Partners. Based in ShoreVest’s Guangzhou office, Ms. Chen leads ShoreVest’s legal department supervising all legal matters related to ShoreVest’s investments, including deal sourcing, due diligence, analysis, negotiation, and post-investment management and exits. Prior to ShoreVest, Cathy was a Lead Legal Manager in the Risk Control Department and a Senior Manager in the Investment Banking Department at HNA Investment, where she specialized in providing legal services primarily relating to private equity investment funds, financing leases, pledge of equity/shares for financings, etc. She also undertook dispute resolution work in respect of corporate and commercial matters. Ms. Chen also practiced at a leading PRC law firm, Junhe Law Offices, and worked in a boutique law firm in Singapore, where her expertise included initial public offerings, private equity investments, cross border acquisition of businesses, assets and shares, local and regional joint ventures and corporate restructuring. Ms. Chen graduated from Fudan University of People’s Republic of China with a Bachelor of Laws degree and is a qualified lawyer in China.
Ada Bi
Ms. Bi is a Partner and the Chief Financial Officer at ShoreVest. She is responsible for the firm’s financial, tax, fund reporting, and invested projects’ financial control. Prior to joining ShoreVest, Ms. Bi was the Chief Financial Officer at Shoreline Capital from 2008 until 2016. Prior to 2008, she had over ten years of experience in financial accounting. While working at Citic-Prudential Insurance Company as Senior Finance Manager in China, Ms. Bi was mainly responsible for business analysis, tax, and projects. While working at Royal Bank of Canada as Senior Financial Analyst in Toronto, she served their mutual fund and commercial banking platforms. Ms. Bi was the Head of Finance for AIG Insurance Company in charge of financial reporting, treasury, tax and budgeting for the property and casualty arm of AIG in China. Ms. Bi is a Fellow member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, as well as a member of Chartered
Professional Accountants (Canada) and holds a bachelor’s degree in international trade from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in Guangzhou, China.
Philip Young
Philip Young is a Senior Advising Partner at ShoreVest, working with the firm to advise on investment strategy and business development. Previously, Philip was an Independent Director at TransGlobe Life Insurance Company in Taiwan. He also served as a Senior Advisor in several wealth management companies in China. Earlier in his career, Philip directed investments of various Chinese and Japanese insurance companies. Years of working in the financial industry in Greater China and the Asian region give him a deep-rooted network in the senior management of the industry and broad knowledge of the Asian capital markets. He interacts with the traditional and alternative assets outside the region as well. Philip holds a BS degree from National Taiwan University and an MBA from University of Chicago. He also has a Diploma in International Investment from Stanford University. Philip currently teaches in the Finance Department at National Taiwan University in Taipei and the Institute for China Business of Hong Kong University. In addition, he authored “The Essence of Wealth Management,” published in 2022.
John Jones
Has over 14 years of experience in credit (both public and private), focusing on business development and product development, working at leading credit platforms and global macro strategy firms.
Dinny McMahon
Dinny McMahon is an Economic Advisor to ShoreVest, working with the firm to analyze the dynamics of China’s credit markets, and assisting the investment committee in its strategic directions. In this role, Dinny actively analyzes the state of China’s commercial banking system, the volume and nature of the banks’ non-performing loans and clean up efforts, as well as other macroeconomic matters affecting ShoreVest’s deal sourcing and execution. Dinny McMahon spent ten years as a financial journalist in China, including six years in Beijing with The Wall Street Journal, and four years with Dow Jones Newswires in Shanghai, where he also contributed to the Far Eastern Economic Review. In 2015, he left China and The Wall Street Journal to take up a fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a think tank in Washington DC, where he wrote China’s Great Wall of Debt: Shadow Banks, Ghost Cities, Massive Loans, and the End of the Chinese Miracle, a book about the Chinese economy that was published in 2018. Until recently he was a fellow at MacroPolo, the Paulson Institute’s think tank, where he wrote about China’s efforts to clean up its financial system. Dinny currently does research on China’s financial system for financial services firms. Dinny is fluent in Chinese, having studied the language in Beijing and Kunming, and followed by a year at the Johns Hopkins SAIS campus in Nanjing where he studied international relations in Chinese.
Chairman, ShoreVest Asset Solutions
Jim Chang
Mr. Chang is a Senior Advising Partner at ShoreVest and Chairman at ShoreVest Asset Solutions. He is an entrepreneur and investor based in Greater China. Mr. Chang began his career at Westinghouse. He later led and negotiated the sale and financing of a European multinational’s first ever large-scale power generation deployments in Greater China, totaling close to $2 billion from 1994 to 1997. In the subsequent decades, he has been an active entrepreneur and investor, starting or investing in companies across real estate development, energy, infrastructure, healthcare, hospitality, and financial services within Greater China. Mr. Chang’s family has been a limited partner in all of Shoreline Capital’s previous funds and he has served as a mentor to the firm’s founders as they built the business. Mr. Chang holds a BS in physics from National Cheng Kung University and a PhD in biophysics from The University of Kansas.
Daoping Yang
Mr. Yang is a Managing Director and a head of Eastern China at ShoreVest Asset Solutions or SAS (ShoreVest’s captive servicer platform, which manages the servicing of distressed assets for the ShoreVest funds across China). He is a seasoned senior executive in China; since 2015 Mr. Yang has worked on alternative investments focused on NPLs, real estate and energy. Prior to 2015, Mr. Yang spent twenty years as an executive at Sinopec, responsible for various aspects of global and regional supply, pricing, and trading. Mr. Yang holds an MBA from China Renmin University and has studied at Georgia Institute of Technology.
Xiaoqiang Ji
Mr. Xiaoqiang Ji is the Beijing head of ShoreVest Asset Solutions or SAS (ShoreVest’s captive servicer platform, which manages the servicing of distressed assets for the ShoreVest funds across China) and is in charge of SAS’s deal sourcing and servicing in Northern China. Before joining SAS, Mr. Ji was a personal investor in alternative assets, and also the CEO of a joint venture company in partnership with one of China’s largest steel trading companies, Hangzhou Relian Group. Prior to that, Mr. Ji worked at a state-owned enterprise for 16 years and was responsible for the allocation and transport of all coal and oil used nationwide for power generation by state-owned power companies. The annual value of coal and oil he allocated was in excess of USD 150 billion. He is a seasoned businessman with many years of experience operating in China. Mr. Ji holds an EMBA from Tsinghua University and a BS from North China Electric Power University.