The founder of CITIC, Chen WanRong, is one of the richest businessmen in China in the 1980s. He was also one of the earliest capitalists who stayed in mainland China. .
CITIC Group is 中国中信集团公司 in Chinese, while CITIC Pacific is 中信泰富 in Chinese. CITIC Pacific is a subsidiary of CITIC.
It was reported on September 17, 2008, that CITIC was in talks to acquire Morgan Stanley. Instead Morgan sold a substantial portion of their company to Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group in addition to applying for $10 billion from the Treasury Department as part of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Its subsidiary, CITIC Pacific, made unauthorized bets on the foreign currency market in October 2008 and lost HK$14.7 billion (US$1.9 billion, when accounted for in mark-to-market terms). Senior executives such as Financial Controller Chi Yin Chau and Group Finance Director Leslie Chang resigned.[6][7][8] Its stock price plunged 55.1 percent upon the resumption of trade.[9]