China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (Safe) disbursed US$2.54 billion in fresh QFII allocations to eight foreign institutions in September, boosting the total amount of quota granted under the scheme to 256 overseas entities and $62.2 billion as of last month.
Newcomers Guosen Securities and Bloomberg Family Foundation received debut quotas of $200 million and $75 million, respectively.
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Hong Kong Monetary Authority, and Commerzbank AG were awarded allocations of $600 million, $1 billion, and $300 million, respectively.
Safe also awarded $200 million in quota each to Genesis Asset Managers and Citibank Hong Kong, while taking back $38.5 million from Robeco Institutional Asset Management, as the allocation had not been drawn down within a specified time.
Separately, the total RQFII quotas granted by Safe reached 283.3 billion RMB ($45.3 billion) as of the end of September, with 95 scheme participants. In September, CSOP Asset Management received the largest grant at 500 million RMB; it remains the biggest aggregate RQFII holder with 46.1 billion RMB.
Up to the end of last month, Safe had doled out 5.2 billion RMB and 8.1 billion RMB RQFII quotas to Singapore and UK asset managers, respectively.
Meanwhile, Singapore-based Lion Global Investors (LGI), which had AUM of $25.8 billion as at June 30, has been awarded an RQFII license from the China Securities Regulatory Commission, allowing it to invest in China’s domestic capital markets.
The firm announced it would follow this up with the application for an investment quota from Safe. It plans to launch a suite of RQFII unit trust funds to fully participate in China’s onshore equity and fixed income markets.
Gerard Lee, LGI’s chief executive officer and chief investment officer, said: “We’re very glad to be given the RQFII licence as it allows us to continue with our roll-out of onshore RMB funds. In addition to A-shares, we can now add RMB onshore bonds and balanced funds to our list of offerings.”
LGI was granted a QFII license in May 2012 and received a $50 million investment quota in March 2013. The firm has been managing QFII China A-shares portfolios since June 2010 and Chinese equities since April 1994.
