The bank casts itself in the mold of such famed European banks as NM Rothschild and Lazard Freres. They've carved a lucrative niche offering sophisticated investment banking advice to businesses large and small on a long-term basis - the sort of ``relationship banking'' that the international giants claim to offer but often lose sight of as they chase mega-deals.

John Chi, one of Seraphim's founders, says his firm's approach is inherently different from the fee-driven, deal-based model that he said dominates the modern investment banking industry. ``We think more like a stakeholder,'' said Chi, who along with partner Casper Huang gets paid for his services with warrants and free equity, not fees.

Chi moved to Asia in 1996 to set up the family office of a wealthy Hong Kong property baron and saw an unfilled niche in the investment banking sector. Global investment banks concentrated on replicating deals that they had done in their home markets but often weren't appropriate to local conditions. Asian entrepreneurs, for their part, were unfamiliar with the workings of global investment banks and had trouble getting the services they craved. ``There was a role for someone to break down the barriers,'' Chi says.

He started out in the conventional investment banking world working for Saloman Brothers in New York in the late 1980s while Huang was a senior manager with Schroders Asset Management in Taiwan, where he is based. Two-thirds of the work they do is related to the technology industry in Asia. Chi declined to discuss clients other than Alibaba, saying they preferred to remain out of the limelight.

Chi met Alibaba executives for the first time four years ago when they were looking into a variety of financing options. His old-school, people-driven approach was just what Alibaba was looking for in an adviser and it proved to be the deciding factor in the success of the Yahoo transaction later on.

``This deal was about close relationships,'' said an anonymous negotiator. ``There were a number of points where the negotiations could have broken down but John Chi was the glue that kept it all together.''

True to form, Chi reckons the Yahoo sale isn't a one-off deal. He's begun building a network of relationships with analysts and investors in New York to start preparing the way for an initial public offering of Alibaba shares. That's something that could prove a lot more lucrative for Alibaba's venture capital investors and owner-managers as a result of the Yahoo transaction, since in addition to the cash, the US firm also threw in its existing China businesses. That addition will broaden the Chinese firm's clutch of Internet businesses and make it more alluring to investors.tim.leemaster@singtaonewscorp.com