Lujiazui to set up global asset platform
LUJIAZUI, the commercial and financial center of Shanghai, plans to set up the Global Asset Management Association of Lujiazui in the first half of this year.
More than 60 global assetmanagement institutions, including BlackRock, Fidelity International and JPMorgan, attended a preparatory meeting in Lujiazui early this month.
The association aims to establish an exchange platform for global asset-management institutions to help them to set up in Lujiazui and understand China’s asset-management industry.
Yuan Yefeng, director of Lujiazui Financial City Authority’s department for finance, shipping and innovation, said the association would attract more leading asset-management organizations to do business in Shanghai.
Currently, over 60 overseas asset-management institutions have subsidiaries or plan to set up branches in Lujiazui. Nine of the top 10 global asset-management institutions have wholly foreign-owned enterprises in Lujiazui.
By next year, China will have the world’s second-largest asset-management market after the United States, with more than US$17 trillion of assets under management by 2030, up from US$2.8 trillion in 2016, according to Casey Quirk, which advises investmentmanagement businesses.
In September 2016, JPMorgan set up a wholly foreign-owned enterprise in the Shanghai free trade zone with the first asset-management license for a foreign company in China.
The license allows a foreign firm to offer onshore fixed-income, equity and multi-asset private funds to both institutional and high-net worth investors in China.
“There was only one member of staff when the wholly foreign-owned enterprise was founded, but now there are 13. We are growing fast,” said Zhou Lingling, deputy general manager with JPMorgan Asset Management (Shanghai) Ltd.
“We are confident of our performance in China, and we will seize every chance in this market,” said Zhou. She said China is expected to become the largest asset-management market in the next five to 10 years.
“We are so glad to be a member of the coming Global Asset Management Association of Lujiazui. I believe it will be a great exchange platform for financial institutions like us,” Zhou said.
Last July, UBS Asset Management became the first international manager with a Qualified Domestic Limited Partner quota to receive a private fund management license in China.
Gao Ting, head of China strategy at UBS Securities Equity Research, said with China’s efforts to open up its capital markets, its yuan-denominated A shares will be included in the MSCI indexes in June, making China’s stock market more important for both onshore and offshore investors.