From the press release desk this week…
People moves
UBS Asset Management poached Sebastien Chaker from Calastone for its business-to-business fund platform, UBS Fondcentre. Chaker will be head of sales, based in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, Nicolas Huras was appointed as the fund platform’s Singapore-based head of sales. The fund platform holds around 60000 funds provided by 400 managers…
Citi appointed Angel Ng as country officer and chief executive officer for Hong Kong and Macau. The appointment will be in effect from May 2018. In this role, Ng will assume the overall management, operations and development in the SARs. She will work with product and function heads within the bank to design business strategy. She will be a member of the Citi Asia Pacific Operating Committee and report to Francisco Aristeguieta, chief executive officer of Citi Asia Pacific…
Sustainable investing
DWS, the asset management arm of Deutsche Bank, has implemented a new rating system based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The system is to help the firm to identify leading companies in terms of ESG implementation…
Harvest Fund Management has inked the United Nation’s Principles for Responsible Investment, the initiative on sustainable investing. The Chinese asset manager said the fund industry is becoming more aware of sustainable investing, meaning that responsible investment has become an inevitable trend in the country. Harvest also manages some thematic funds with one of them investing in environmental technology…
Prestige, a direct lending investment manager, is launching an ISA-eligible Renewables Lending Bond. The launch will be made under a partnership with Goji, a lending and investment platform in the UK. The bond is designed to help wealth managers generate steady returns from renewable infrastructure projects in the country…
China
China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange plans to revive the outbound investment scheme of domestic investors, or the Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) programme. The scheme, enacted since 2006, has issued $90bn in quotas. However, issuance of quota was discontinued in 2015 to avoid excessive capital flight out of China. The Chinese financial authority said it will study further ways to optimise the scheme to widen investment channels of its nationals…
The London-Shanghai stock connect is expected to launch this year, the People’s Bank of China governor Yi Gang revealed at the Boao Forum held in Hainan, China. Yi, the newly-appointed governor, said the cross-border trading link, similar to the existing programmes with Hong Kong, will provide stock market access to the investors in the UK…
Hong Kong’s chief executive Carrie Lam said at the Bloomberg Invest Forum in Hong Kong this week that the SAR is playing a role as an entrepot for the imports and exports between China and the US. Trade conflicts between the two will potentially hurt the SAR indirectly. In a letter to the US commerce secretary Wilbur Ross, she expressed the government concern about the tariff imposed on China’s steel and aluminium products. The International Monetary Fund‘s managing director Christine Lagarde, who spoke at the University of Hong Kong this week, believes a trade conflict between China and the US is creating significant uncertainty for businesses and for global supply chains…
Start-ups
Schroders opens application for its global in-residence programme for tech start-ups. The Cobalt programme will mainly target the tech companies offering services relevant to investment management. The start-ups will have to operate beyond the conceptual or early-growth stage. The programme will provide start-ups with direct access to business divisions within Schroders, resources and potential investment…
