D-Day Beckons

Within a span of a month, the 44th president of the US unleashed a one-two punch on the financial system which many critics were clamouring for in response to the excessive risk taking that led to the worst recession since the 1930s.

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TRENDS: PENSIONS

China’s NSSF assets climb 38%

The National Social Security Fund (NSSF), China’s national pension fund, has recently disclosed that its assets jumped by 38% to 776.5 billion yuan (US$113.7 billion) at year-end 2009. This was mainly driven by its equity investments last year which allowed them to gain 42.7 billion yuan coming on the heels of a bullish domestic stock market that soared 80% last year.

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TRENDS: JAPAN

Triple A enters strategic relationship with SPARX

Triple A Partners has announced that Triple A Partners Distribution Limited and Triple A Partners LLC, an Asian and emerging markets alternative fund company in the seeding and distribution business, will partner with SPARX Asset Management Co Ltd to help them further develop and supplement their marketing and distribution activities outside of Japan.

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TRENDS: INVESTOR SENTIMENT

Equity, property best bets if inflation strikes

Investor sentiment is on the upswing heading into 2010, based on ING’s quarterly Investor Dashboard survey, which shows a significant 101% jump in the Asian region for 2009 and overall confidence recovering to pre-global financial crisis levels.

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TRENDS: SURVEY

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Emerging markets enters top five most attractive sectors

In a recent quarterly survey released by Northern Trust Global Advisors (NTGA), results suggest that institutional investment managers expect continued growth in the global economy and corporate earnings in the near-term, together with stability in both interest rates and the housing market.

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TRENDS: ENVIRONMENTAL

Clean energy transition is imminent

After the much-maligned global climate summit in Copenhagen failed to produce substantial results last December, Pictet is renewing its case for the green theme as the firm believes that global climate change presents not only the most important environmental challenge, but also a wide range of interesting opportunities for environmental-related investment themes.

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TRENDS: PENSIONS

HK tops pension charts on back of MPF

In the latest Towers Watson’s Global Pension Assets Study, Hong Kong holds the distinction of having the largest increase in pension fund assets relative to the size of the economy over the past ten years among the 13 major pension markets.

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GREATER CHINA

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State to prop up the QDII scheme

With the recovery of the global economy, China’s regulator is expected to bolster the Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) scheme. In 2009, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) awarded a combined foreign investment quota of US$7.4 billion to nine fund management firms.

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Taiwan expertise vital to Chinese investors

China-based qualified domestic institutional investors (QDIIs) have been given the green light to invest in Taiwan's stock market following a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on financial regulatory cooperation between the two sides which took place last month.

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INVESTING IN MENA

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Dubai troubles not representative of the region

Just a couple of years ago Dubai was flaunting its wealth by building the world’s only seven-star hotel, the Burj Al Arab, the man-made Palm Islands which can be seen from space, an indoor ski resort in a country that regularly hits 40 degrees Celsius during summer, and was on track to complete the world’s tallest building – the Burj Khalifa – which just recently opened its doors.

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PENSIONS

HSH pension boss demands value from fund managers

Since joining The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels, Limited (HSH) in September 2008 from ABN AMRO Bank, Finance Director and Chief Financial Officer Neil Galloway has been busy overseeing the group’s corporate finances as well as involving himself in HSH’s expansion and redevelopment plans.

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EXCHANGE TRADED FUNDS

UOBAM launches Singapore’s first China A-Shares ETF

The United SSE 50 China ETF is the first China A-Shares ETF listed on the Singapore Exchange and in Southeast Asia, offering access to China’s A-Shares equities market, which is currently only accessible to Chinese investors and Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFII) approved by China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC).

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CHINA ROUNDTABLE

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Investors advised to incorporate governance into investment analysis process

Corporate governance has made great strides right across the region in the years following the Asian financial crisis of 1997; typically, new securities laws have been enacted with stronger protection for minority shareholders while boards of directors have been restructured with independent directors and board committees.

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CHINA

All go for stock index futures and margin trading

On January 8, 2010, the State Council finally endorsed the long-pending proposal giving the green light to the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) which signalled the official commencement for the trading of stock-index futures, margin trading and short-selling – ‘in principle’.

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FOCUS ON HEDGE FUNDS

Fundamentals can determine difference between good and mediocre

According to the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), the international trade body for the hedge fund industry, an absolute majority of all assets under management by hedge funds and funds of hedge funds globally are from institutional investors. And a third of those assets from institutional investors now come from pension funds.

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Fund administrators now part of the due diligence process

International law firm Maples and Calder has been recognised as a global leader in offshore legal counsel through numerous accolades. Asia Asset Management spoke to Spencer Privett, joint managing partner at the firm, and Hong Kong Director Hugh Thompson to find out what the legal take is on firms operating long/short equity hedge fund strategies.

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GREATER CHINA OUTLOOK

Mainland demand bails out region’s export markets

As a result of the systemic failure of global financial markets, the heaviest effects of the crisis were soon felt in the world’s oil- and commodity- producing economies as well as the export-led economies. China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, which are heavily export-reliant economies, were caught in the spiral of the global recession.

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EQUITY INVESTMENTS UPDATE

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Continued low interest rates will entice investors to Asia

As economic power continues to shift from West to East, Asian equities will once again be under the microscope in 2010 as they seek to sustain the momentum gained during their rebound last year. Asia ex-Japan showed the way as the MSCI AC Asia ex-Japan index posted 68.3% in 2009 as confidence soared that the region’s emerging economies were better positioned to ride out the storm than their Western counterparts.

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PROFILE

Northern Trust boss looks to address opportunities in Australia, Japan and China

Teresa Parker, the Asia-Pacific chief executive officer of Northern Trust has certainly come a long way in her nearly 28-year career with the Chicago-headquartered bank; with a strong background in operations, she has risen steadily up the corporate ladder, taking her from Chicago to London (where she spent 15 years, latterly as head of Europe, Middle-East and Africa) before moving to Singapore last September as the boss for the Asia-Pacific region.

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Korean institutional assets growth creates opportunities for foreign hedge funds

Hana Daetoo Securities (HDS) is a unit of the Hana Financial Group, the fourth largest Korean banking group with the equivalent of US$150 billion in assets and which has Hana Bank, the fourth largest Korean commercial bank as its largest single entity.

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VIEWPOINT

President Obama sets alarm bells ringing following banking proposals

There is something called G20. No, I am not referring to the Hong Kong retail chain for men’s clothes, despite the close resemblance to that brand. It is a newly crafted body of global heads of governments that doesn’t count for much.

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INSIGHT

Property managers can learn from Aussie best practices

Three leading European pension funds – APG Asset Management, PGGM Investments and the Universities Superannuation Scheme – recently commissioned a global environmental real estate survey in response to real estate investments playing an increasingly important role in institutional investors’ responsible investment strategies.

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MARKETS

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The yuan peg and US treasury yields

Consider the following statement written by the author in a September 5, 2008 client note. The yuan had been re-pegged to the US dollar in the same July 2008 weekend the US Treasury agreed to backstop Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but no announcement to that effect had been made:

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DIRECTORY OF MANAGER APPOINTMENTS AND SEARCHES

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Directory of Manager Appointments and Searches

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GOING PLACES

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Going Places

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