News

Asian hedge funds are gicing up their secrecy and allowing clients more control of their investments in order to draw money from institutions.

Aladdin Capital Holdings LLC is splitting off part of its asset management business into a new company majority owned by Japanese trading firm Mitsubishi Corp.

SBI Investment Co. will act as the Investment Management Advisor to RHB Private Equity Fund Management Ltd in establishing the Asia CleanTech Fund.

Crescent Wealth is targeting investments from Malaysia, which is home to the world's second-largest Islamic funds market with about US$5 billion under management.

Bank Muamalat  has launched the Islamic Dual Currency Investment, which will be initially offered in the Malaysian Ringgit, Euro and US Dollars to wholesale customers, reports Bernama News.

Nikko AM and DBS Bank completed the agreement to merge DBS Asset Management Ltd  and Nikko AM.

DBS Bank and NDB Group have signed an MoU  to collaborate in equity and fixed income issuances, syndications, project financing and mergers and acquisitions.

 In the first half of this year, ICBC has secured more than 23,500 investment banking customers and a business revenue of RMB 13.16 billion, up 51.8% from the year-ago where the revenue from domestic investment banking business surged 48.9% year-on-year to RMB 12.38 billion.

Public Bank launched three news funds, namely PB Asia Emerging Growth Fund, PB Bond Fund and PB Sukuk Fund. It is managed by its wholly owned subsidiary, Public Mutual. Public Mutual's Chief Executive Officer Yeoh Kim Hong, said the growth prospects for Asia were supported by resilient consumption expenditure amid sustained income levels, rising urbanisation rates and favourable demographic trends. PB Asia Emerging is an equity fund which will seek to achieve capital growth over the medium- to long-term period by investing primarily in stocks of emerging small- to medium-sized companies in domestic and regional markets. PB Bond provides annual income through investments in fixed income securities and money market instruments while PB Sukuk will invest in sukuk and Islamic money market instruments. Yeoh said PB Asia Emerging would offer investors the opportunity to invest in companies with promising growth prospect, which may include foreign markets such as South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and other permitted markets. PB Bond would allow investors access to the bond market, usually inaccessible to the average investors being a market mainly for institutional investors where the standard transaction is RM5 million per lot while PB Sukuk would allow investors access to the sukuk market. The initial issue price of PB Asia Emerging is 25 sen per unit while PB Bond and PB Sukuk prices are both RM1 per unit during the 21-day initial offer period starting tomorrow until Sept 26, 2011.

Maybank plans to expand its investment banking business in Southeast Asia after the segment registered a 49% surge in fee-based income to RM292mil.

Hong Leong Bank may sell MIMB Investment Bank Bhd’s investment licence included in its acquisition of EON Capital’s assets and liabilities.

CIMB Securities will establish an investment banking advisory joint venture in Sri Lanka.

ICICI Venture Funds has sold 5% of its stake in Va Tech Wabag to Japan-based Sumitomo Corporation for around Rs 68 crore.

Affin Fund Management launched an open-ended fund with an approved size of 800 million units.

Bank of China launched the first batch of wealth management products exclusively available via online banking.

ICBC added a new member to the ICBC "Link Express" product family - "Link Express" ultra-short 7-day RMB profit increase. Customers are free to redeem anytime as long as the product is held longer than 7 days.