Australia's Macquarie Bank said it intends to expand further into Asia and Europe with its latest division, Macquarie Global Investments. The section will consist of the existing Macquarie Private Portfolio Management and Macquarie Pastoral Fund teams, and will market those products to both local and overseas investors. MGI head Matthew Rady told Australian newspaper, The Financial Standard, that the division would focus on Asia as its key growth market, putting 600 more staff into its Hong Kong office in the first quarter of next year to increase their regional funds management capabilities. Macquarie Financial Group also signed a recent agreement with Indian financial services provider Religare Wealth Management Services to provide product development, management and distribution assistance. Mr Rady said the new division would also target specific European markets such as Germany. “Specific European markets also present some opportunities and we have had people based there researching investment needs for some time,” he said. “We do see a lot of appetite out of Europe for the Pastoral Fund in particular. I think that there are also opportunities in Europe at the high net worth investor level in certain market segments such as Germany, where we think there are some interesting opportunities for some of our more retail product capabilities.”