The company said the approval is for its eight “Harmony” branded funds, which are sub-funds of the Momentum Global Funds Luxembourg Sicav.
The funds are the: Harmony Asian Growth, Harmony Asian Balanced, Harmony US Dollar Growth, Harmony US Dollar Balanced, Harmony Sterling Growth, Harmony Sterling Balanced, Harmony AUD Growth and Harmony Euro Balanced.
“Asia is a key distribution focus for Momentum and the approval by the SFC for the Harmony funds will provide us with a substantially strengthened platform for our growth strategy in the region,” said Ferdi van Heerden, chief executive of Momentum.
“We enjoy excellent support from our distribution partners in Asia and the newly acquired authorisation will enable us to build on existing relationships and extend our provision of innovative investment solutions coupled with first class client service.”
Momentum said the authorisation is the latest step in its expansion into Asia and the Middle East, having established “strong links” with these markets through strategic partnerships with wealth managers and intermediaries.
This expansion includes the appointment of the Australia based Easton Asset Management as the global sub-distributor of the Harmony fund range.
Easton Asset Management is a subsidiary of the Australian Stock Exchange listed sub-division of Easton Investments which earlier this year took a near 20% stake in Singapore based AAM Advisory.
Momentum’s approval also comes at an interesting time for the Hong Kong market. Click here to read about the recent introduction of commission disclosure for Investment Linked Assurance Products.