Bloomberg reported last week that Li Yifei had been taken into custody to help with inquiries, sending shares in Man Group lower and unnerving China's foreign investment community.

However Li told Reuters that she had been attending industry meetings and had then taken a 5-6 day trip to meditate.

"I wasn't investigated," Li told Reuters by telephone, adding she was "shocked" by the media reports.

Investors in China say they have been coming under increasing pressure from Beijing as authorities' attempts to revive the country's stock markets hit headwinds, with some investors now being called in to explain trading strategies to regulators every two weeks.

China has unleashed a volley of measures to try to prop up its stock markets <.CSI300><.SSEC> that have fallen around 40 percent since mid-June, pushing domestic brokerages and fund managers to buy up shares and banning investors with large stakes from selling their holdings for six months.

Li indicated it was largely business as usual for her though, adding she was still working for Man Group.

Li's husband, Wang Chaoyong, told Reuters last Tuesday that his wife was having "normal" meetings with regulators at a convention centre in a hotel in a suburb of Beijing.

(Reporting by Zhang Shu and Matt Miller; Writing by Kazunori Takada; Editing by Miral Fahmy and Rachel Armstrong)