In case you missed it (20 December 2019)

STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED THIS WEEK

Best-selling funds

Real estate funds were among the most popular products sold to investors in Singapore during the third quarter, according to data provided by Broadridge Financial. Of the top 10 products that had the highest inflows, six of them were real estate funds. In addition, like in other markets, fixed maturity products also had huge inflows in the Lion City. Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, global fixed income products had the highest net inflows during the same period, with two of them being FMPs…

Top 10 funds by net inflows (Q3 2019)

Source: Broadridge Financial

People moves

Manulife has appointed Damien Green as the new CEO for Hong Kong and Macau, effective 1 January. He will report to Anil Wadhwani, Manulife’s Asia CEO. Green joined the firm in 2018 and is currently the firm’s chief strategy and transformation officer for Asia. During the past year, Green has focused on a wide range of areas including supporting the development of new business strategies for the Japan and Hong Kong businesses, along with the establishment of a new execution and governance framework to accelerate the firm’s customer experience and digital transformation. Green replaces Guy Mills, who will become chairman at Manulife International and senior adviser to Wadhwani…

Tech partnerships

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Alibaba and Ant Financial have entered into a strategic partnership to enhance the services available to users by deepening their level of cooperation in key areas of fintech and financial services. Under the partnership agreement, the parties will work together and improve the quality of fintech offerings by using smart technology and product innovation. The partners will use their collective experience and capabilities to focus on areas that include electronic payment settlement, cross-border finance and scenario-based financial services. The collaboration started as early as 2005 when Alipay and ICBC joined hands to offer online payment services to users. ICBC was the first bank in China to partner with Alipay to deliver online payments…

Fundraising

Global real estate investment manager Nuveen Real Estate has raised around $480m for two of its Asia-Pacific strategies. The Asia Pacific Cities strategy gathered around $420m from eight European investors, while the China Outlet Mall strategy received $60m from a Dutch financial services company. The Asia-Pacific strategy recently acquired a logistic facility in Greater Tokyo, following its acquisition of an office asset in Sydney in late-2018. Investors in the strategy include Swiss and German institutions, as well as private pensions. Meanwhile, the China outlet mall platform focuses on leading designer outlet malls across Greater China…

Global investors have invested around $4.45bn into hedge funds in November, slightly lifting year-to-date outflows to $81.5bn, according to an Evestment report. The inflows last month halt eight consecutive months of aggregate outflows. During this year, only MBS and event-driven strategies had net inflows from investors…

Enforcement

Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has banned two of W Falcon Asset Management’s former executives. Ang Wing Fung, the former chairman of the firm was banned for life, while ex-chief financial officer and company secretary Chan Kam Wah was banned from re-entering the industry for three years. The disciplinary action against both follows SFC’s revocation of the firm’s licences in February this year for window-dressing its liquid capital and other failures. Ang was the mastermind of the window-dressing scheme, while Chan facilitated its operation…