Asian Fund Managers Seek Alternatives Amid Slump The global equity slump has cooled Asia's asset management boom and forced managers to search for new alternatives to whet investor appetites, according to Institutional Investor's annual survey of the region's largest fund managers.
Total assets of the Asia 100, the biggest fund managers, surged 18.3 percent in 2007, to $11 trillion, the survey finds, but that growth reflected the big surge in markets across the region last year. With markets down sharply this year, managers have struggled to capture new assets and hang onto existing ones.
"The situation has changed quite substantially. Investor confidence is low," says Ken Tam, chief executive officer at JF Asset Management, the Asian division of JPMorgan Asset Management that runs a joint venture, China International Fund Management Co., with Shanghai International Trust and Investment Co.
Managers are increasingly turning to regional funds, such as those focusing on investment in Latin America, to attract investors. Brazilian funds have been popular because of awareness among Asian investors of the region's seemingly insatiable demand for Brazilian resources such as iron ore and soybeans. "If you understand the client needs, you can do very good business in these market conditions," says Christof Kutscher, Hong Kong-based head of UBS Global Asset Management for the Asia-Pacific region.
How We Did It Institutional Investor's 14th annual ranking of Asia?s biggest institutional investors was compiled from a variety of sources, including questionnaires filled out by the institutions themselves, company Web sites and annual reports, and regulatory agencies. II researchers refined this data through follow-up faxes, e-mails and telephone calls. When official data were unavailable, we obtained figures from actuaries, brokerages and consulting firms.
Estimates are footnoted where used. Unless otherwise specified, all data are as of December 31, 2007, for all countries except India, Japan and South Korea, for which data are as of March 31, 2008.
New York-based Associate Editor WeiQing Lu led the project, under the guidance of Assistant Managing Editor Sathya Rajavelu and Senior Editor Jane B. Kenney, with the assistance of Contributing Editor Donald Kirk in South Korea and Contributor Niraj Bhatt in India, as well as Researchers Carol To in Hong Kong and Katsuko Usami in Japan.