The Board of Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing says Henry Fan has today served a notice to take a leave of absence from the meetings of the board and the HKEx nomination committee with immediate effect.

Mr Fan, Citic Pacific Limited's managing director, said this is to avoid any perception of conflict or potential conflict of interests in the regulators' investigation into his firm.

He will not receive any board and committee papers during his leave, and will resume attending these meetings upon completion of the investigation.