China’s Former IPO King Looks for a Fresh Start

China International Capital Corp. was once known as China’s answer to Goldman Sachs. Run by Levin Zhu —the son of then-Premier Zhu Rongji—it helped take some of the country’s biggest companies public, including China Construction Bank and China Petroleum & Chemical. The era of mega-IPOs is gone, and so is CICC’s dominance. It hasn’t been China’s top investment firm since 2005 and has fallen over the past decade from first place in revenue to 21st in 2013.

Now Zhu is gone, the bank has new leadership, and it’s planning an initial public offering this year to raise capital and expand into new businesses—moves that Zhu once resisted. “The firm has hit a bottleneck and is stuck in the middle,” says Chi Man Wong, an analyst at China Galaxy Securities in Hong Kong. “They have a decent investment banking business, but that’s not an exciting story, and I can’t see a growth driver.”