The total assets under management of Hong Kong’s asset and wealth management industry fell by double digits last year as the special administrative region was not spared from the global sell-off in public markets.
According to data released by the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) on Friday, the total AUM came in at HK$30.54trn ($3.91trn), down 14%, despite recording net fund inflows of HK$88bn, as both fixed income and equity markets were whipsawed by rising interest rates.
According to the SFC, the AUM of the asset management and fund advisory business came in at HK$22.39trn, while the AUM of the private banking and private wealth management business stood at HK$8.97trn.
The SFC noted though that Hong Kong-domiciled funds started to see a rebound during the third quarter, up 15% to HK$1.34bn through to the end of June this year. Meanwhile, mainland-related firms eked out a small increase in AUM last year, up 1% to HK$2.56trn.
Despite growing backlash towards ESG globally and the underperformance of a number of ESG funds last year due to their correlation to growth stocks, SFC-authorised ESG funds saw their numbers swell by 86% to 177 and their total AUM rise 8% to HK$1.11trn.
Despite a difficult year, the number of firms licensed to carry out asset management (type 9 regulated activity) in Hong Kong increased 5% to 2,069. The total number of staff in the asset and wealth management industry was broadly flat at 54,322.
