Deutsche’s QDLP quota
Deutsche Asset Management has received an initial $50m dollar commitment from a Chinese institutional investor under the qualified domestic limited partnership (QDLP) programme. The QDLP programme allows foreign asset managers to raise up to $100m of domestic capital from professional investors who want to invest in offshore products.
The investor will invest in Deutsche AM’s open-ended diversified core real estate fund strategy in the US, the firm said in a statement, without elaborating. It is the first business for Deutsche AM’s wholly foreign owned entity in Shanghai.
The firm first received its QDLP quota in 2016. “To launch the fund, establish and agree the documentation with the investor in less than one year is quite quick in the institutional investor market,” Victoria Sharpe, the firm’s head of alternatives for Asia-Pacific, told FSA. She added that the firm has been in discussions with different types of institutional investors, some of whom cater to the Chinese high-net-worth investor market.
So far, only 15 firms have been granted QDLP quotas since the programme launched in 2013. However, Chinese regulators stopped giving out quotas in 2015 to control capital outflows…
People moves
BNP Paribas Asset Management Japan has appointed Kaoru Fukae as head of wholesale distribution sales for Japan. Based in Tokyo, he is responsible for building and developing the firm’s retail fund business in the country. Functionally, he reports to Christian Bucaro, CEO for Singapore and head of wholesale distribution for Asia-Pacific, and locally to Ryohei Shimazaki, CEO for Japan. Previously, he was head of fund sales at JP Morgan Asset Management Japan…
State Street Global Advisors has appointed Betty Ng as Hong Kong-based managing director and chief operating officer for Asia ex-Japan. In this newly created role, Ng oversees business and infrastructure development, as well as supports the implementation of strategic and growth initiatives for the firm in the region. She reports to June Wong, SSGA’s head of Asia ex-Japan. Before joining the firm, she was Agricultural Bank of China’s general manager for private wealth management in Hong Kong…
ICI Global, which carries out the international work of the Investment Company Institute, has appointed Jennifer Choi as the institute’s chief counsel. She will be responsible for leading ICI Global’s policy work on cross-border legal and regulatory matters affecting ICI and its members. She has held several roles within ICI, most recently she was associate general counsel for global capital markets policy…
Business moves
Eastspring Investments has entered into a strategic partnership with US-based Sustainable Growth Advisers (SGA). Under the partnership, Eastspring will exclusively represent SGA’s Global Growth and US Growth strategies to both institutional and retail investors in Asia…
Allianz Global Investors (AGI) and Allianz Capital Partners (ACP) have joined forces to extend the range of investment expertise available to AGI’s global client base, strengthening further its offering in alternatives. ACP currently manages €22bn ($25.93bn) in alternative equity assets on behalf of Allianz. With this move, AGI’s AUM in alternatives will reach around €58bn.
Regulation and enforcement
The Securities and Futures Commission has issued a circular which cautions investors of the risks associated with bitcoin futures contracts and other cryptocurrency-related products and reminds financial providers of the legal and regulatory requirements when they target customers in Hong Kong. The circular noted that bitcoin futures have been or will soon be launched by certain well-established futures and commodities exchanges in the US, which are regulated by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission and authorised by the SFC to provide automated trading services…
The SFC has banned Abbie Yip, a former trader of BNP Paribas Hong Kong, from re-entering the industry for 18 months for attempting to conceal a trade execution error. The regulator found that Yip made multiple attempts to conceal an in-house foreign exchange spot trade execution error made by her in 2015 and the consequential loss of $58,000 from the erroneous trade. These attempts include: requesting another trader to split the loss over two days so it would be more difficult for other staff to detect the loss, manually re-booking the loss in the wrong portfolio so that it would be less detectable, failing to include the loss in the requisite daily reports and failing to report the incident and misleading her supervisor when questioned…
Fintech
Thomson Reuters has partnered with the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (Astri) to help accelerate the development of fintech innovation by bringing technology, tools and content to the innovation hub launched jointly by Astri and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. Under the partnership, Thomson Reuters will be sharing its financial analytics services such as Eikon and its open platform to Astri…
Hedge funds
Year-to-date, hedge funds have returned 7.70%, continuing on pace for its best year since 2013, according to an Evestment report. Equity related strategies have separated themselves from the rest of the industry, with activists, long-short and quant equity strategies producing average returns at least 300 basis points higher than all other primary hedge fund strategies during the year…
