Former King & Wood Mallesons China co-chair Zili Shao has joined rival Fangda Partners after less than two years.

Shao (pictured), a corporate lawyer and investment banker, joins Shanghai-based Fangda as a non-executive chairman with a mandate to lead the firm's management and strategic initiatives.

Earlier this month, Beijing-based financial media outlet Caixin reported that Shao will start a new investment fund that taps into China's nonperforming loans and other distressed assets.

Shanghai-based Lingyue Capital will be launched in cooperation with state-owned Sinochem, Shanghai International Group and Shenzhen-based brokerage First Capital Securities, JPMorgan Chase & Co's former joint venture partner.

Shao left KWM before the firm's February announcement that former Hong Kong partner Zhang Yi would be the firm's new China chairman. He joined in April 2015 to co-lead the firm's China arm alongside global chair Wang Junfeng. Shao joined from JPMorgan Chase & Co, where he was Asia-Pacific vice-chairman. (He remained a senior adviser to the US investment bank after joining KWM.)

Before his appointment as JPMorgan Chase's Asia-Pacific vice-chair in 2014, which occurred at a time when the bank's hiring of relatives of influential Chinese government officials was drawing attention from US regulators, Shao had been JPMorgan's China chief executive and chairman for five years. He moved there from Linklaters, where he had been Asia managing partner.

KWM's newly appointed global managing partner Sue Kench recently told Legal Week that there had been some "recalibration" of the firm's global plans following the high profile collapse of its former European arm. The firm has since rebuilt an EMEA business with partners who agreed to stay on after the collapse, but exits have continued, with seven of the roughly 30 partners who initially agreed to remain with KWM or its affiliated offices leaving in recent months.

KWM declined to comment on Shao's departure.

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