Asia Pacific Intelligence

Editorial

Wednesday, January 09, 2013

Welcome to 2013 and to the January issue of Asia Pacific Intelligence. With the start of a new year, it's a good opportunity to take a peek back at how 2012 was for the Asian hedge fund industry and then to look forward at developments we can hope to see over the coming year.

This month's cover story is an extensive interview with Joseph Pacini, Head of Alternative Investment Strategy Group for BlackRock Asia Pacific and responsible for some $22bn in alternatives in the region. Pacini pinpoints opportunities for investors into Asia and within Asia over 2013. Dislocations, shortage of capital and volatility will all provide potential returns, he says.

For our 'View from here' regular column, we interviewed James Hay at Pangolin Investment Management whose $37m portfolio has achieved an annualised return of 16% since 2004, with investments in just four Asian markets: Singapore; Malaysia; Thailand and Indonesia. Not strictly a hedge fund, as the markets don't offer much in the way of hedging opportunities, Hay's fund is a value fund, hedging through natural opportunities that arise in inefficient markets.

Looking at the regulatory environment in Asia, both back to 2012 and looking forward to 2013, Kinetic Partners have produced a substantial report on how this will impact on financial services companies. Asia seems relatively calm but leaders from the financial services industry certainly seem to have concerns over the impact of new regulations in the coming year.

Beverly Chandler
Editor, Asia Pacific Intelligence
Chandler@opalesque.com

Beverly Chandler

About the editor - Based in the UK, Beverly Chandler has been a specialist hedge fund journalist and editor for many years. She has written extensively for the national newspapers, including the Financial Times, trade papers and established a number of hedge fund magazines and newsletters. She has also written a series of books on the subject, including Managed Futures - An Investor's Guide for Wiley Financial, and Investing with the Hedge Fund Giants, from Pearson. Beverly was the European editor for MAR Hedge from 1996 to 2000, the years when a great number of the hedge fund manager star names of today were starting to build their businesses. She was awarded the Rose Baratz journalism award by AIMA in 1992.

Beverly has also worked extensively in the hedge fund conference industry, chairing and filming interviews at events for the GAIM conferences among others.

This article was published in Opalesque's Asia Pacific Intelligence our monthly research update on alternative investments in the Asia-Pacific region.