Emerging, Frontier Markets Specialist Wins Hong Kong Licence

Tom Burroughes

29 May 2015

Sweden-headquartered frontier and emerging markets specialist firm has announced that its Asia subsidiary has been granted an asset management and securities advice licence in Hong Kong.

The licences were granted by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission; the firm opened an office in Hong Kong in 2007 and has invested in the region since 2010, it said in a statement yesterday.

Over the past 10 years, East Capital has been marketing and distributing its range of public equity funds, in particular its flagship funds, the East Capital Russian Fund (launched in 1998) and the East Capital Eastern European Fund (launched in 2002), to investors based in Asia-Pacific. In total, the firm says it oversees around $2.83 billion in public and private equity funds.

In 2010 it established a research capability into China’s equity markets in Shanghai and in 2013 was the first Nordic asset manager to get a QFII licence. To date, East Capital has invested more than $170 million in the China A-shares market.

In March this year, East Capital won approval from Luxembourg’s financial services regulator, the Commission de Surveillance du Sector Financier, for its UCITS-compliant daily traded funds to invest in A-shares through the Hong Kong – Shanghai Stock Connect Programme. (That programme went live late last year.)

The Hong Kong-based equity team is led by Karine Hirn, partner, East Capital, who works with Adrian Pop and Dmitriy Vlasov, alongside a team of analysts.

East Capital’s Asia fund range includes a daily-traded A-shares fund, the East Capital (Lux) China Fund and the East Capital (Lux) Emerging Asia Fund. Last year the firm launched the East Capital (Lux) Frontier Markets Fund, part of which invests in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Vietnam.