FROM THE PRESS RELEASE DESK THIS WEEK…
Business moves
UBS Wealth Management has raised $225m globally from private clients for an impact product managed by KKR. The KKR Global Impact Fund invests in businesses providing commercial solutions that contribute measurable progress toward one or more of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Besides the KKR Global Impact Fund, UBS Wealth previously launched other impact investment products, which attracted money from Asia-Pacific-based clients…
BNY Mellon has opened a representative office in Jeonju, Korea, in order to deepen its partnership with the National Pension Service (NPS) of Korea. BNY Mellon was selected by NPS as the global custodian for their fixed income mandate last year and was given permission from the Korean regulatory bodies to set up a representative office in Jeonju, where NPS is headquartered. NPS, which oversees Korea’s public pension assets, is the world’s third largest pension fund. As of the end of April, it had assets of around $600bn, of which $200bn is invested outside of Korea…
People moves
Lieven Debruyne, Schroders’ Hong Kong-based CEO for Asia-Pacific, has been appointed as global head of distribution. Debruyne will continue in his Asia-Pacific role until a successor is appointed. At that time, Debruyne will relocate to London. Debruyne will replace John Troiano in the distribution role, who will retire at the end of this year. The firm also made three other appointments. Charles Prideaux has been appointed in the newly created role of global head of investment, where he will be responsible for the management, oversight and development of the firm’s investment platform along with the ESG team and data insights unit. Johanna Kyrklund, in addition to her existing role of global head of multi-asset investments, has been appointed as group chief investment officer. Carolina Monio-Paluello, who was previously Lombard Odier Investment Managers’ global head of solutions, has been named as global head of products, solutions and quants…
M&G Investments has created a new Asia-Pacific equity team, which will be led by Dave Perrett and Carl Vine, who joined the firm as co-heads of Asia investment this week along with five other investment professionals specialising in Asian markets. All seven previously worked at investment boutique Port Meadow Capital Management. Vine will also become the manager of the firm’s four Japan-focused funds, subject to regulatory approval, replacing Johan Du Preez, who is stepping down. In the interim period, the four funds will be managed by Shane Kelly, manager of the M&G Global Recovery fund…
Manulife Investment Management has appointed Myron Zhu as head of private markets for Asia. Based in Hong Kong, Zhu will be responsible for the firm’s private markets franchise in Asia, with a focus on developing and executing products. Before Manulife IM, Zhu was at Aberdeen Standard Investments, where he was co-head of private equity for Asia-Pacific. Before that, he was JP Morgan Chase Bank’s head of alternative investments…
Asset and wealth management consultancy firm Alpha FMC has appointed Paul Tan as a director for its Asia-Pacific regional team. He will be responsible for expanding Alpha’s Asia offices. Previously, Tan spent five years at Greenwich Associates, where he was managing director for Asia-Pacific…
Institutions
For the first time in seven years, assets managed by the world’s 20 largest pension funds fell 1.6% in 2018, according to a report by Willis Towers Watson. For the 300 largest pension funds, AUM fell 0.4% to $18trn in 2018, which compares to the increase of 15.1% in 2017. Asia-Pacific is the second largest region in terms of AUM, accounting for 26.2% of all assets held by the 300 pension funds, second to North America at 45.2% and ahead of Europe at 24.9%…
