Ashmore Investment Management, the UK-based fund management firm, has acquired the 49 per cent stake Aviva Investors was supposed to own in a prospective joint venture with a Chinese investment company. 

Aviva had entered an agreement to merge with China Central Securities in 2009, but pulled out due mostly to cost-cutting initiatives and a rationalisation effort at its asset management business. China Central is a securities trading house based in Hainan Province.

"It suited us very well in terms of time to market. In the long term, one clearly needs to have a Chinese asset manager in the portfolio," said Graeme Dell, finance director for Ashmore Investment Management. 

The UK firm already has exposure to Mainland China through a minority interest in Everbright Ashmore, a Hong Kong-based real estate firm. The said company is 51 per cent owned by China Everbright, the state-owned conglomerate. It also owns a 19.99 per cent stake in Beijing International Trust. Ashmore received qualified foreign institutional investor status in 2009 and then opened an office in Beijing in 2010.