(SINGAPORE) Two senior Hong Kong-based executives of Singapore investment company Temasek Holdings have quit.

'Frank Tang, senior managing director, investments, China, and another staff member, Terry Hu, managing director, investments, will be leaving Temasek,' spokesman Mark Lee told Reuters. 'Their resignations will be effective on Oct 1, 2007.'

Word of Mr Tang's and Mr Hu's resignations comes one day after Temasek said chief investment officer Jimmy Phoon had quit after eight years with the firm.

Mr Lee did not comment when asked about the China private equity fund that Mr Tang and Mr Hu were planning to set up. But Robert Chong, Temasek managing director for human resources, said that the company was 'open to opportunities to work with them in their new capacities'. 'We are open to the possibility that they may return to Temasek someday too,' Mr Chong added.

Mr Tang will form a China private equity fund that will focus on investments in the world's fastest-growing major economy.

'At this point I have decided to narrow my focus and concentrate on backing emerging champions in China,' Mr Tang said in a statement distributed by Temasek.

The former Goldman Sachs Group banker joined Temasek in 2005 and was senior managing director of China investment.

He will be appointed as an advisory director of Temasek starting Oct 1, sources said. Mr Hu will join Mr Tang in setting up the fund, they added.

Private equity investments in China reached US$7.1 billion this year, according to Asian Venture Capital Journal, even as the country's regulators tighten scrutiny over the purchase of state assets by foreigners. -- Reuters, Bloomberg