News & Insights

On 25 September 2020, China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) released the Measures for the Administration of Domestic Securities and Futures Investment by Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFII) and RMB Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (in Chinese《合格境外机构投资者和人民币合格境外机构投资者境内证券期货投资管理办法》and its implementing rules (collectively, the “New QFII Measures“). The new QFII measures are based on the “Consultation papers” (“Draft QFII measures”) published by CSRC on 31 January 2019. It has since been highly expected by global asset management and investor community as there are quite a few important breakthroughs in the draft that people have long waited for. These include consolidation of QFII and RQFII [...]

Published on IPE Magazine (September 2019) Author: Sun Wei, Founder of ATC Initiative Notes on 11 Sept 2019: yesterday the big news is that Chinese regulator (SAFE)announced the decision to remove quota on QFII/RQFII. This is another big step in opening up Chinese capital market. Below is an article I have written for the Sept issue of the IPE magazine. It compares various channels for China market access and points out the healthy competition between QFII and the Stock-Connect programs. The article can also be found at: https://www.ipe.com/reports/special-reports/china/capital-markets-all-roads-lead-to-china/10032998.article As the second largest economy in the world, China’s economic significance [...]

ATC Business Casual  Author: Sun Wei, Founder of ATC Initiative Over the past weekend (on Saturday 20 July), China State Council Financial Stability and Development Committee (the country’s highest financial policymaker) announced 11 measures to substantially further open up Chinese capital market. Most of the measures are related to asset management businesses. Please see Appendix 1 for the full list of these open-up measures. While each measure in the document is worthy of good attention. In this short article, I’d like to focus on item 3 of the measure. It offers a new and very practical route for global managers [...]

ATC Business Casual  Author: Sun Wei, Founder of ATC Initiative One of the most eye-catching pieces of China-related news in London recently would be the formal launch of the Shanghai London Stock Connect, with Chinese investment bank Huatai Securities listing its GDR on London Stock Exchange yesterday (Monday 17th June 2019). London Stock Exchange provided a nice piece of a news release on its website with a well-made video (https://www.lseg.com/markets-products-and-services/our-markets/shanghai-london-stock-connect) and it is also easy to find through google search various info covering the detailed mechanism of the Connect program. Unlike Shanghai Hongkong Stock Connect which enables capital to go [...]

ATC Business Casual  Author: Sun Wei, Founder of ATC Initiative This is my second “ATC Business Casual” writing on the topic of Chinese pension market. (See the first article "Why Pension Reform Makes China Market More Investable?" here) It is necessary because I wish to answer the question from many European asset managers that practically how an international asset manager can participate in Chinese pension asset investment. This question needs to be answered from two separate perspectives: 1) Chinese pension funds’ overseas market asset allocation; 2) Chinese pension’s domestic market asset management. Overseas market allocation For overseas allocation, it is [...]

ATC Business Casual  Author: Sun Wei, Founder of ATC Initiative Working on Allocate to China (ATC) Initiative would inevitably get me involved in the frequent debate with European investors on “Why China? Why allocating to China NOW?” It is particularly the case in these days when people can easily provide quite a few arguments for NOT to allocate to China now. For instance, lower growth rate, US-China trade tension, housing market growth slowdown, etc. But what I found interesting is that many of the cited reasons for not investing are actually, with a bit more exploration, reasons for increasing the [...]

Author: Melody Yang, Partner of Simmons & Simmons 2018 has seen a new chapter in the asset management industry in China. The announcement on 11 April 2018 by Yi Gang, the Governor of the People’s Bank of China, has marked the commencement of a larger series of reforms in the asset management sector in the nation with different measures, with the aim of opening up China’s financial services to foreign investors. With this optimistic outlook of the Chinese fund industry, it can be foreseen that more asset managers overseas will be ready to enter the Chinese market. Meanwhile, global asset [...]

Author: Nan Luo, Head of China, UNPRI ESG investing has become a very hot topic in China especially in the past year. It started to appear in mainstream conference agendas and a lot of communications. The accelerated uptake of the concept also evidenced by the growing number of PRI signatories in China, with the number increased to 18 from last year’s 7. It’s particularly encouraging to see the move of the long-term Chinese investors with China’s first insurance and largest asset manager-China Life Asset Management recently becoming PRI’ Signatory to start the ESG journey. The growing momentum is both driven by [...]

It was great to see so many delegates at the Allocate to China event last Thursday—around 140 professionals from asset management and related industries here in London. China capital market does have its gravitational pull! Stephen King’s keynote speech is enormously enjoyable, while the panel discussions also provided such a satisfying feast of thoughts. The theme of the event is A Reality Check 4 Months after MSCI China A-Shares Inclusion. Just as Robert Parker (Chairman of AIMC at ICAM) put it in his opening remarks at the 2nd penal discussion, a dose of reality that each of us need to [...]