Asia Pacific Intelligence

News Roundup For September. Hedge fund regulatory, compliance and other news from September

Monday, October 08, 2012

Over the month, Opalesque has reported on a number of developments in Asia. A report from Cerulli Associates revealed that Japanese institutions have doubled their investment in hedge funds over recent years, although they generally prefer large, brand name funds with a simple long/short, absolute return strategy.

Albourne Partners Asia's Richard Johnston reported that large hedge fund managers in Asia are getting bigger as institutional investors favour the apparent security of scale. We also reported that the staggering economic growth of Asia has not been reflected in the growth or performance of Asian hedge funds. Investment guru Marc Faber also made an appearance, speaking at a conference in Hong Kong and expressing a view that he is less bearish on China.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) reported on the impact of their temporary restrictions on short selling. In other developments, ASIC published its guidelines on disclosures of benchmarks and principles for hedge funds in Australia.

Nordic bank SEB reported that their China Financial Index found that North European companies were less optimistic about the future, with lower customer demand the biggest worry.

Earlier in the month, Stratfor published a report on The People's Bank of China's plan for financial reform.

Singapore saw the opening of a new office for international law firm Maples and Calder, under the management of funds partner Nick Harrold. The Singapore office will be a full service, full execution office providing Cayman Islands and British Virgin Islands advice across the firm's core practice areas, including hedge and mutual funds, private equity, structured and asset finance, corporate law and trusts for high net worth individuals.

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