Industry Updates

APS partners with Martin Currie to form China A share and Greater China active equity management business

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

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Opalesque Industry Update - APS Asset Management Pte Ltd (APS) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Martin Currie to form a long term strategic partnership and become the world's leading independent China A share and Greater China active equity management business. The completion should be done at the end of September.

APS will leverage Martin Currie’s distribution platform, and the latter will be APS’ primary distributor worldwide.

In the announcement released today, Mr Wong Kok Hoi, chairman of Singapore-based APS, said: “Competition in our line of business is intensifying. Hence, instead of competing with one of the industry giants, I decided it is more sensible in the long-term to pool resources with Martin Currie in building a highly competitive China team.”

The A-share class is designed for Chinese residents; only a handful of Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFII) are allowed to trade in them. Most foreign investors invest in US$, in Hong Kong markets, and trade in H shares, instead of A shares, Hedge Fund Research told Opalesque in a recent interview.

APS manages five hedge funds: APS Far East Alpha Fund; APS Japan Alpha Fund; APS Greater China Alpha Fund; APS Greater China Long/Short Fund; APS Asia-Pacific Hedge Fund – and a retail fund, the APS Alpha Fund. It has research teams across three different cities in China supporting their market leading China ‘A’ share strategy.

Martin Currie, a specialist investment management business head-quartered in Edinburgh and with around $16.2bn in AuM, has been active in China since 1994, and was among the first foreign institutions to be awarded a QFII license in 2005.
B. Gravrand

See our most recent article on APS:
Opalesque Exclusive: APS Greater China Alpha Fund down -5.7% in May (-6.3% YTD) on slowdown of China’s economic growth Source

See last week's articles on China hedge funds:
Opalesque Exclusive: All about China hedge funds – How can investors take part of the China play (Part III) Source
Opalesque Exclusive: All about China hedge funds – Nearly 300 hedge funds are now located in Greater China (Part II) Source
Opalesque Exclusive: All about China hedge funds - New tools since last year (Part I) Source

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