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HONG KONG, Feb 4 (Reuters) - News and developments in Asian funds industry in the last one week.
FEBRUARY 3
European banks have loaned in excess of $3 trillion to emerging markets, more than four times U.S. lenders and putting them at greater risk if financial market turmoil in countries such as Turkey, Brazil, India and South Africa intensifies.
JANUARY 31
Any spill-over damage to the developed world from a sell-off in emerging markets is likely to come through violent swings in financial flows rather than via lost trade, with Japan seen as most vulnerable.
The world's top investors kicked off the new year by cutting emerging Asian bond holdings to a 2-1/2 year low while keeping relatively high weightings in euro zone stocks, a Reuters poll showed on Friday.
Continental European funds cut equity and debt exposure to emerging Europe and Asia in January as they braced for a volatile start to 2014 driven by expectations of further cuts in U.S. stimulus.
Investors yanked $9 billion from emerging stock and bond funds during a turbulent past week, with equities seeing their biggest outflow in 2-1/2 years, banks said on Friday citing data from Boston-based fund tracker EPFR Global.
Two multi-billion dollar U.S. hedge funds, one of which was Asia-focused, will close, the Wall Street Journal reported late on Thursday.
Japanese fund managers trimmed their exposure to equities in Japan and U.S. markets in January on the view that valuations were too high, and as the allure of risky assets decreased after the Federal Reserve began to trim its bond-buying stimulus, a Reuters poll showed.
JANUARY 30
Segantii Capital Management, one of Asia's fastest growing hedge funds, has been hit by five resignations in the last few weeks, people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters, after the firm saw its first annual loss.
China fund managers suggested raising bond allocations from a three-year low, taking some comfort in the central bank's recent cash injections, while cutting cash and standing pat on stocks for the next three months, according to a Reuters monthly poll.
Norway's finance ministry has told its $810 billion oil fund, the world's biggest sovereign wealth fund, to stop investing in two Israeli firms and one Indian company on ethical grounds.
JANUARY 29
Morgan Stanley and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc 8306.T are considering forming a partnership to provide administrative services to hedge funds, a senior official of the Japanese lender said on Wednesday.
JANUARY 28
J.P. Morgan Asset Management said it has received a RMB 1 billion ($165.34 million) quota from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange under China's renminbi qualified foreign institutional investor scheme, the largest quota ever issued to a foreign institution. The money manager will use the quota to launch a China equity fund.
Chinese asset management firm CSOP said on Tuesday it was collaborating with London-based Source to apply for an exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the United States, following their first such product launch in London earlier this month.
Two Hong Kong asset management firms have agreed to pay $10.9 million to settle charges by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of insider trading ahead of a bid by China's CNOOC
The fund manager in charge of investing the Chinese government's foreign exchange reserves, who helped diversify its foreign asset portfolio away from U.S. Treasury bonds, is leaving his position, three sources told Reuters on Tuesday.
JANUARY 27
Emerging markets may be unrecognisable from the small and fragile economies that fell like dominoes 15 years ago, but they are just as vulnerable today to the same sort of indiscriminate selling when investor panic sets in.
(Compiled by Nishant Kumar; Editing by Supriya Kurane)
((nishant.kumar@thomsonreuters.com)(+852 28474064)(Reuters Messaging: nishant.kumar.reuters.com@reuters.net))
Keywords: FUND WEEKLY/