Axa Investment Managers is considering expanding its wealth management offering in China.
“As for any global asset manager, we are looking to develop our business in China and wealth management could be one of the opportunities,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement to FSA.
“As we have a long-standing and fruitful collaboration with our JV partner SPDB [Shanghai Pudong Development Bank], SPDB is a natural candidate to explore this opportunity with.”
Axa IM already has a mutual fund joint venture with SPDB in China. In addition, it operates a wholly foreign-owned enterprise in China.
Any expansion into wealth management would see it join a long list of firms that have set up wealth management joint ventures since Beijing relaxed the rules on foreign ownership in 2019.
In 2020, Amundi and Bank of China became the first to gain approval to set up a joint venture. Only this week, BNP Paribas and Agricultural Bank of China received the green light for their joint venture.
