A group of US and Chinese business people on Wednesday unveiled the first US financial services firm to be co-owned by Chinese interests.

HuaMei Capital Company, as the joint venture firm is known, will be based in Chicago and Beijing, highlighting the growing links between Chinese business and the US Midwest.

It will offer risk management and private equity investment services for US and other investors, as well as for “the growing number of Chinese firms with authority to invest offshore”, its founders said.

They include former Illinois senator Adlai Stevenson; Leo Melamed, former chairman of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange; and China Merchants Securities Holdings, based in Shenzhen.

China Merchants Securities is part of the China Merchants group, a semi-private financial conglomerate whose bank has pioneered the credit card and wealth management businesses in China, and is the market leader in both segments.

MVC Capital, a private equity fund listed on the New York Stock Exchange, is a strategic investor. It is headed by Michael Tokarz, a former Kohlberg Kravis Roberts general partner.

MVC’s latest investments include Ford dealerships in Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands and a pasta manufacturer in North Dakota.

The establishment of the first US financial services firm with Chinese investors part-headquartered in Chicago is another sign of the Midwestern city’s growing importance as a global financial and commercial centre. A second office is to be set up in Purchase, New York.

Richard Daley, Chicago mayor, recently has been pushing his city as a destination for Chinese investment.

Mr Melamed was a driving force behind the CME’s purchase this year of the Chicago Board of Trade, creating the world’s largest combined derivatives exchange and clearing house.

Chicago’s futures exchanges have been forging ties with the Dalian Commodity Exchange and the Shanghai Futures Exchange.

Mr Stevenson is chairman of the Midwest US-China Association, formed in 2004 and whose mission is to attract Chinese investment to the Midwest.

“HuaMei is a start-up, but our relations developed in China over many years, in many venues and now with China Merchants, give HuaMei an unequalled potential for execution and origination of transactions through China,” he said.

In addition, MVC gave the new joint venture “institutional links” in Japan and other countries.

Additional reporting by Richard McGregor in Beijing