From the press release desk this week…
People moves
Capital Group has hired Henry Chan to join its global relationship team. Based in Hong Kong, he will focus on the financial intermediary market in Hong Kong and will report to Jeik Sohn, managing director for financial intermediaries for Asia. Before Capital Group, Chan was at Blackrock, where he helped build the firm’s private banking distribution business…
Columbia Threadneedle Investments has appointed Sophia Shi as vice president and sales manager for wholesale distribution in Singapore and Kenneth Oh as director and sales manager for wholesale distribution in Hong Kong. Both Shi and Oh report to Dennis Quah, head of wholesale distribution for Asia. Before joining the firm, Shi was an associate director for private banking distribution at M&G Investments, while Oh was wealth investment sales head at HSBC in Hong Kong…
BNY Mellon has appointed Sam Xu as country executive for China. He replaces Robert Kung, who decided to retire following five years with the firm. Based in Shanghai, Xu is responsible for leading the strategic direction and expansion of the firm’s local capabilities and presence across all business in China and reports to Gregory Roath, head of global client management for Asia-Pacific. Before BNY Mellon, Xu was head of transaction banking for China at Standard Chartered. He covered cash and liquidity management, trade finance, custody and other securities services…
Manulife Asset Management has appointed Yvonne Sin as an independent director. She will also join the board’s audit and risk committee and the conduct review committee. Sin is a pension expert with 40 years of experience working with governments, non-governmental organisations, supranational entities, international financial institutions and multinational corporations. She has worked for the World Bank for 14 years, where she was appointed to leadership positions, including head of global pensions of the social protection unit, as well as team leader of the corporate planning and resource management unit…
Products
State Street Global Advisors has registered its Communication Services Select Sector SPDR Fund in Japan. With the registration, the firm now has 51 ETFs registered for sale in the country. The ETF provides exposure to the new communications services sector, unveiled by S&P Dow Jones Indices and MSCI, following the annual review of the global industry classification standard (GICS) structure in November last year. The reclassification of the GICS structure will transform the existing telecommunications services sector, expanding it to include selected companies from information technology and consumer discretionary sectors. It will be renamed “communications services” effective today…
Investors globally put $4.74bn into hedge funds in August, bringing year-to-date net flows for the industry to $15.38bn, according to Evestment’s monthly hedge fund industry asset flow report. However, the strong US dollar and global trade tensions has hurt emerging market hedge fund returns and investor sentiment. Nearly 70% of emerging market hedge fund managers saw outflows in August, and now nearly 60% of emerging market managers have year-to-date net outflows…
ESG
The level of ESG disclosure and top level commitment in ESG governance among Hong Kong-listed companies are disappointing, according to a survey released by accounting firm BDO. The survey revealed that there is a low participation rate for ESG governance from the director level of 26% and only a relatively small portion of companies (36%) disclosing methodology and results on the identification of material issues, suggesting that they are adopting a “tick-box” approach without proper identification and analysis of risks…
Regulation and enforcement
Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission has banned Ngo Wing Chun, a former relationship manager at HSBC, from re-entering the industry for 13 months for unauthorised transfer of customer data, according to a statement from the regulator. The SFC found that Ngo sent an email containing personal data of around 995 customers from his HSBC email account to his two personal email accounts in 2015. The customer data leakage was immediately detected by HSBC’s email monitoring system before Ngo joined another bank in a similar capacity the following day…
The Monetary Authority of Singapore has warned investors of two fraudulent websites that are soliciting investments in bitcoins using fabricated comments attributed to the regulator’s chairman and deputy prime minister, Tharman Shanmugaratnam. “The website’s article on bitcoins is highly deceptive and misleading. The statements attributed to DPM Tharman are completely false, apart from his observation that trading volumes in cryptocurrency are low in Singapore,” the regulator said…
Singapore-China cooperation
Singapore and China have discussed ways to deepen existing collaboration and expand cooperation into new areas, according to a statement from the MAS. The financial cooperation will focus on four areas: Strengthening supervisory cooperation, enhancing financial connectivity, expanding cooperation in fintech and supporting the belt and road initiative. “As the financial sectors develop further in both China and Singapore, there are significant opportunities to enhance financial connectivity for mutual benefit,” Ravi Menon, MAS managing director, said in the statement…
