This week…
| MRF |
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Schroder Investment Management has started selling its Asian Asset Income Fund in Mainland China through the Mutual Recognition of Funds (MRF) scheme. The fund, which was approved for sale at the end of May, is so far available for direct sales only… |
| People moves |
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Aviva Investors has appointed Thijs Hupkes in the newly-created role of Singapore-based director for real estate client solutions for Asia-Pacific and Middle East. Hupkes will be responsible for deepening relationships with existing and prospective clients in the region. Before joining the firm, he was previously with CBRE Global Investors, where he spent more than eight years in the firm’s Amsterdam and Singapore offices… Vontobel Asset Management has hired three new research analysts for its “quality growth boutique”, an equity investment team that focuses on high-quality growth businesses. The new hires are Maggie Chau, who is based in Hong Kong, and New York-based analysts Rob Hansen and Ian Chun… Standard Chartered has named Ryan Cuthbertson as head of product management and custody and clearing for securities services and transaction banking. Based in Singapore, he will lead the custody and clearing product team to build and enhance the range of products and services offered by the bank to its global client list… |
| ESG |
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The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, has launched a NZD 100m ($75m) Green Kauri bond in New Zealand to finance private sector investments addressing climate change in emerging markets. This is the first time that a green bond has been launched in New Zealand… Morningstar has acquired a 40% ownership stake in Sustainalytics, a global provider of environmental, social and governance (ESG) research and ratings. Morningstar intends to support Sustainalytics’ ability to deliver high-quality, innovative ESG products and services to the global investment community. The acquisition follows their strategic collaboration in 2015, which resulted in the launch of the Morningstar Sustainability Rating for global mutual and exchange-traded funds in March last year… |
| Enforcement |
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Hong Kong’s Eastern Magistrates’ Court has convicted an individual after she pleaded guilty to three counts of making false or misleading representations in support of her licence application to the SFC. Yan Ching Ching, among other things, failed to disclose her previous criminal convictions in her SFC licence application in 2015. She was fined HK$15,000 ($1,920) and also ordered to pay the SFC’s investigation costs… The SFC has suspended Chan Wai Ling, a former account executive at Kingsway Financial Services, for 12 months for accepting instructions from a third-party firm to trade in the accounts of three clients without obtaining written authorisation from those clients. The trades were done between December 2013 and May 2015. The SFC also found that Chan created deceptive phone records to give the impression that the trade instructions were confirmed from the clients… |
