Permira, the European private equity house, has bolstered its capabilities in China with the hire of Alan Chen as head of China and Christian Paul as portfolio director.

Before joining Permira, Chen spent about nine years working for Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong, latterly as executive director in the Asian special situations group. He has also worked for HSBC.

Paul joins from Alix Partners, where he was a director in Shanghai for four years and part of its China leadership team and member of the global directors’ council. Before that, he worked for KPMG in Berlin and Roland Berger in Berlin and Beijing.

The recent developments are part of Permira’s expansion in the region. In January, Henry Chen and Alex Emery were named co-heads of Asia, tasked with growing the company’s business with focus on China, Korea and Japan.