Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Citic Capital Holdings Ltd., part- owned by China's biggest state investment company, hired five executives to expand in China and Japan, according to an e- mailed statement.

The China-focused investment manager hired Liu Bo as director and Terry Cui as senior associate of China private equity. Liu was senior vice president and general manager for China at Ewing Management Group, a U.S. private equity firm, and Cui previously worked as a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group.

Zhao Hanxi, former director of strategy and planning at Dow Jones & Co., joins the Japan private equity team as director. Chen Yueping, who worked as a business analyst at Arthur D. Little Inc., a U.S. management and consulting firm, and speaks Norwegian and German, joins the same team as a senior analyst.

All four will be based in Shanghai. Eriko Yamamoto, previously a consultant at A.T. Kearney joins the Japan team as associate and will be based in Tokyo.

Citic Capital will continue to hire mid- to high-level talent to help the firm build its investment franchise, said Chief Executive Zhang Yichen. The firm manages more than $1.3 billion of capital from international investors and its businesses include private equity, asset management, real estate, structured finance and special situation investment.

Citic Pacific Ltd. and Citic International Financial Holdings Ltd. each own half of Citic Capital. Citic Group, China's biggest state investment firm, owns 14.5 percent of Citic Financial and 28.8 percent of Citic Pacific, according to Bloomberg data.

Eugene Nesbeda, managing director at Citic Capital, announced last week he will leave the private equity arm, according to an e-mail sent by the company to clients. Nesbeda will join Cortec Group Inc. in New York as senior managing director in January.

To contact the reporter on this story: Cathy Chan in Hong Kong at kchan14@bloomberg.net;

Last Updated: December 11, 2007 21:22 EST