An Zhong (AZ) Investment Management, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Azimut, has become the first Italian manager to register as a private securities fund management firm with AMAC.
Its parent, Milan-listed Azimut, has a presence in China and Singapore under the name of AZ Investment Management and in Taiwan under AZ Sinopro, according to the firm’s website.
The firm manages 10 hedge funds and 95 mutual funds mainly sold in Italy, Switzerland, and Luxembourg, data from FE shows. Its aggregate AUM was €47.2bn (£42.1bn, $58.14bn) at the end of June 2017.
AZ’s license in China was approved on 28 February. It allows the firm to sell funds to domestic qualified (institutional and high-net-worth) investors. It now faces a six-month deadline for the first product launch.
Industry discussions
The firm has not yet decided whether it will offer onshore investors equity or fixed income strategies.
“Within a month or two, we will finish discussions with our clients and learn their investment needs. So far, the majority of them are from the institutional side and are more interested in fixed income products, while the remaining [high-net-worth] clients are rather flexible,” Stefano Chao, AZ’s general manager, told our sister publication Fund Selector Asia.
Chao is the representative for the entity and heads the office in Shanghai of seven employees.
In April 2017, AZ’s advisory wholly foreign-owned enterprise (WFOE) was converted into an investment management enterprise, enabling the firm to apply for the PFM license.
Apart from the eligibility to launch private funds in China, the firm is the first Italian fund house to hold quota for the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) programme.
So far, among foreign PFM license holders, seven onshore products were launched. The latest was Fullerton’s absolute return strategy. Fidelity is the manager that offers the most onshore products compared to peers, including one equity fund and two bond funds. Including the other asset managers holding licenses, at least six more products could be launched onshore by August.
| Firm | Licence obtained | Products launched |
| Fidelity International | January 2017 | China Bond No. 1 Private Fund |
| China Equity No. 1 Private Fund | ||
| China Bond Opportunity No. 1 Private Fund | ||
| UBS Asset Management | July 2017 | China Equity Private Fund Series 1 |
| Fullerton Fund Management | September 2017 | Fullerton Absolute Return China A Strategy Series 1 Private Fund |
| Man Investments | September 2017 | 英仕曼宏量1號私募基金(A quantitative hedge fund, for which the firm does not use an English name.) |
| Invesco | November 2017 | – |
| Neuberger Berman | November 2017 | – |
| Value Partners | November 2017 | Value Partners PFM Neo-China A Share Fund 1 |
| Aberdeen Standard Investments | December 2017 | – |
| Blackrock | December 2017 | – |
| Schroders | December 2017 | – |
| Azimut | February 2018 | – |
Source: FSA
