From the press release desk this week…
People moves
Principal Global Investors is developing an Asia fixed income team with the appointment of Wan Howe Chung as Singapore-based managing director and head of Asian fixed income. Reporting to David Blake, executive director, chief investment officer and head of fixed income, Wan will be responsible for leading the new Asia fixed income team. Before PGI, Wan was previously head of Asia fixed income at Amundi Asset Management in Singapore…
Unigestion has added to its cross-asset solutions team with two investment manager hires, which include Salman Baig and Joshua Seager. Baig joined the firm earlier this year from Bridgewater Associates, where he was an investment associate and engineer focusing on fundamental macroeconomic research, portfolio construction and risk management. Seager was from EQ Investors, where he focused on asset allocation and quantitative analysis…
Gam Investments has appointed Juan Landazabal in the newly-created role of global head of trading. Based in London, he will be responsible for strengthening the firm’s existing trading infrastructure, strategy and processes, as well as counterparty relationships across equities, fixed income and foreign exchange. He will report to Matthew Beesley, head of investments. Before Gam, Landazabal was from DWS Group (formerly Deutsche Asset Management), where he was global head of fixed income and foreign exchange trading…
Cititrust in Hong Kong has appointed Keith Yuen as an independent non-executive director, following the approval by the Mandatory Provident Fund Authority. The role will draw on Yuen’s experience and knowledge of retirement and pension schemes in Hong Kong. Previously, Yuen was regional vice president at Principal Financial Group in Hong Kong, where he was responsible for the firm’s fund management and pensions business in Hong Kong and China…
Portfolio management
Japanese firms are the most advanced in Asia in using machine learning to generate alpha, according to a Bloomberg survey that comprised 450 market participants based in Hong Kong, Mumbai, Tokyo, Singapore and Sydney. At least 50% of the 140 Tokyo-based respondents said they have started to use machine learning to generate investment signals, while the majority of participants in Sydney (53%), Singapore (52%) and Mumbai (70%) are investigating or just starting to look into using machine learning in their strategies…
Microsoft, Alphabet and Apple remain the most widely-held companies among 7,000 equity strategies, according to eVestment’s institutional stock ownership report. Among emerging market equity managers, Baidu has entered the top 10 in spite of the tech underweight among emerging market equity funds…
20 most widely-held companies among equity funds
Note: Companies added during Q2 2018 are highlighted in green and companies no longer on the list are highlighted in orange. Source: Evestment
10 most widely-held companies among emerging market equity funds
Source: Evestment
ESG
Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), which manages ¥158.58trn ($1.40trn) in assets, has selected the environmental indices recently launched by S&P Dow Jones Indices as the benchmark for their ESG investment strategy. The new indices are the S&P Global ex-Japan Large Mid Cap Carbon Efficient Index, the S&P Global Large Mid Cap Carbon Efficient Index and the S&P/JPX Carbon Efficient Index. The indices are designed to reduce exposure to high-carbon companies in a systematic way, while maintaining a risk/return profile similar to that of their benchmarks…
Finance firms have joined world leaders from government and health to launch a tobacco-free finance pledge. This encourages signatories to consider the adoption of tobacco-free finance policies across lending, insurance and investment, in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The pledge was launched with at least 120 founding signatories and supporters, which include Axa, AMP Capital, BNP Paribas and Natixis…
