The Dutch fund management company Robeco could no longer ignore Asia and has laid out plans to expand its business in the region.
“Robeco is committed to improve its position in Asia,” says Robeco International CEO Frank Kusse. “You may say that Robeco has forgotten Asia a little bit, which is unfortunate because this region has so many attributes.”
As part of expanding its international footprint, Kusse announced in early November that Robeco will establish an office in Hong Kong, which will serve as its management centre for Greater China, which consists of Taiwan, mainland China, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, including Singapore. The company already has an office in Japan, which it set up 18 months ago and now has assets under management of 2 billion euros (US$2.94 billion). Robeco also has a presence in India through a 49% owned joint venture with Canara Bank, called Canara Robeco Investment Management.
Established in 1929, Robeco, which is part of the Rabobank Group, offers investment products and services to institutional and private investors worldwide. With assets under management amounting to 150 billion euros, its product range encompasses equity and fixed income investments, money market and real estate funds, and alternative investments, such as private equity, hedge funds and structured products.
Kusse says Robeco, which is still waiting for approval of its status as an asset manager from Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission, will do a number of things in Greater China. “We will build strong distribution centres in Hong Kong and we will build the business in Taiwan through master agents and sales companies,” he says. “In Singapore, we are going to tap the growing private banking market.”
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| | Kusse : You can never miss China |
Kusse also disclosed that in the first quarter of 2008, Robeco plans to transfer 1.5 billion euros of funds currently being managed out of Rotterdam to Hong Kong. In addition to having people from Robeco, the company will hire additional fund managers to manage and grow the funds as well as to develop new products.
Robeco is likewise keen to set up a joint venture company in China as part of its rapid growth strategy in that market and to support the growth of QDII (Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor) scheme. “We are currently talking to different institutions and we hope to make an announcement during the next six to nine months,” Kusse says. “China is a place that you can never miss. We will make an effort to penetrate this market.”
Robeco announced the appointment of Frances Chia Yue Chang as the new CEO for Greater China and Southeast Asia. She was previously the head for retail in Greater China and Singapore at ABN AMRO Asset Management (Asia). “Greater China is a very competitive market, especially Hong Kong, which is a crowded market with a large number of service providers,” she says. “But to us, there are areas in which we can bring our quality products and services to complement this market.”
