William Blair has announced the opening of a new office in Singapore, and the simultaneous hiring of another emerging market debt (EMD) specialist.
The new office extends the Chicago-based investment manager’s Asian reach, adding to its presence in Shanghai. The firm also has offices in the UK, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and Australia.
“Opening the Singapore office marks a pivotal point in our growth, providing us with a greater level of on-the-ground Asian coverage and insight than ever before [and] creating a strong platform to deliver William Blair’s range of equities, fixed income, and multi-asset [products] to Asian investors,” said Stephanie Braming, partner and global head at William Blair Investment Management, in a statement.
The firm also announced the appointment of Clifford Lau as Singapore-based portfolio manager on its EMD team. He was poached from Columbia Threadneedle Investments, where he was head of fixed income for Asia-Pacific and managed Asian bond portfolios. Previously, he was head of the Singapore office at Pramerica Fixed Income, the asset management division of Prudential, where he was responsible for about $1bn of Asian fixed-income assets.
He will be joined in William Blair’s Singapore office by Johnny Chen, an EMD portfolio manager who was hired from NN Investment Partners (NNIP) in February.
Chen was one of 12 EMD specialists acquired from the Dutch fund manager in November 2019. The team, led by Marcelo Assalin, formerly head of emerging market debt, and Marco Ruijer, ex-lead portfolio manager for EM debt hard currency and frontier market debt strategies at NNIP, started at William Blair earlier this year.
“The Singapore office is the most recent step in a period of significant international expansion for William Blair Investment Management, following the acquisition of an emerging markets debt (EMD) team and subsequent launch of new investment strategies to complement its existing suite of Sicav products,” said a spokeswoman.
The firm intends to add further investment and distribution professionals to support its presence in Singapore in due course, she added.
William Blair provides investment advisory services to private and public pension funds, insurance companies, endowments, foundations, and sovereign wealth funds, as well as financial advisors. It is an independent and employee-owned firm, and operates in 20 offices worldwide.
Its investment management arm runs $56.8bn in assets (as of 30 June 2020), according to the firm’s website.
