This all goes to show that Asian investors are just as wealthy and eager as those in New York, which could go a long way towards making Hong Kong and Singapore more attractive listing venues. The region’s ageing savers have amassed more than US$10 trillion of wealth in the form of pension funds, mutual funds and insurance policies, HSBC Holdings estimates. With billions to deploy, Taiwan’s insurers and China’s mutual funds may find benefits to trading stocks in their own time zone, if only for their portfolio managers’ work-life balance.
(Dec 2): Has the golden age of asset management finally arrived in Asia? For years, Asia’s hottest unicorns left their homelands to list in New York for one simple reason: a deep pool of US money. And they have been rewarded. From Alibaba Group Holding to JD.com, more than a dozen Chinese companies listed there have a market capitalisation of US$10 billion ($13.6 billion) or more.
But Alibaba’s Hong Kong listing may be changing things. The e-commerce giant raised about US$11 billion in the city’s largest issuance of stock since 2010, with about one-third of the tranche taken up by mainland Chinese fund managers. Other regional buyers were enthusiastic, too. Taiwan’s life insurer Fubon Financial Holding Co, for instance, placed a US$500 million order.
