From the press release desk this week…
People moves
Hong Kong-based Harvest Global Investments has made several appointments to support the expansion of the firm’s international product offering. The firm has named Sebastien Gandon as director of business development, responsible for developing the firms’s international sales; Winnie Wong as a portfolio manager in charge of the firm’s fixed income portfolios; and Vicki Zhang as senior business development manager for the China sales team. Gandon was previously from East Capital, Wong from Royal Bank of Canada and Zhang from CLSA Alternative Investment…
Jupiter Asset Management has appointed Leon Wei as a credit analyst in the firm’s fixed income team, bringing the firm’s credit research team to a total of seven. Wei will focus on developed markets across different sectors, and will contribute ideas primarily to the firm’s unconstrained bond strategy. Before Jupiter, he was at Singapore-based Temasek, where he was an associate director responsible for credit analysis on high yield bonds and leveraged loans…
Man Group has appointed Simon Finch as chief investment officer for credit at Man GLG, the firm’s discretionary investment management arm. In this newly-created role, Finch will be responsible for Man GLG’s credit business and will have oversight of the credit portfolio management teams. Before Man GLG, he was at credit-focused asset management firm CQS, where he was CIO and ran the firm’s multi-asset credit fund…
Mutual fund products
The top reviewed products among Asia-Pacific investors on Evestment’s mutual fund research platform are mostly global equity products, according to the firm’s monthly viewership report. Only two fixed income products made it on the list of top 20 reviewed funds…
Banks continue to be the main distributors of mutual funds in Asia despite the recent emergence of digital platforms, according to a study by Cerulli Associates. However, banks have seen a decline in the share of mutual fund assets, from 63.4% in 2012 to 46.1% in 2016. Over the same period, independent financial advisors gained the most, rising to 12.5% from 0.6%, followed by direct or tied agents to 24.8% from 15.3%…
Malaysia-based PMB Investment has launched its first multi-currency fund, the PMB Shariah Asean Stars Equity Fund. The firm is targeting that the fund will gather $30m-$40m in assets for the fund this year. This should help the firm reach its ambitions of achieving the target total AUM of RM 1.90bn ($490m) by the end of 2018…
Regulation
The Monetary Authority of Singapore is working with the financial industry to develop a guide to promote the responsible and ethical use of artificial intelligence and data analytics by financial firms. The guide will set out principles and best practices for the use of AI and data analytics, with the aim to help firms strengthen internal governance and reduce risks of data misuse…
