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Insto roundup: China's private funds hit $3tr; GIC, APG invest in China real estate

Sydney Airport rejects second takeover bid by consortium joined by AustralianSuper; Australia's FSC launches new charter to boost female representation in fund management; China's privately offered funds hit $3 trillion; GIC invests in China warehousing and industrial real estate with ESR Cayman and APG; Japan's new university fund looks to invest in alts and foreign stocks; and more.
Insto roundup: China's private funds hit $3tr; GIC, APG invest in China real estate

AUSTRALIA

Sydney Airport has rejected a second takeover bid by a consortium newly joined by AustralianSuper.

The consortium, which includes QSuper, IFM Investors and Global Infrastructure Management, had offered $8.46 per share, an increase from its first bid of $8.25.

AustralianSuper joined the consortium for its second bid, but the airport boards rejected the offer, stating again that it was opportunistic.

Source: Financial Standard

The Financial Services Council (FSC) has launched a new charter to improve female representation in the fund management industry.

The Women in Investment Management Charter was formed after the FSC found that women on average only made up 25% of investment teams.

Charter signatories agree to principles that include appointing a senior executive responsible for gender diversity, setting internal targets, and reporting annually their progress towards targets.

Source: Financial Standard

CHINA

The scale of China's privately offered funds hit RMB18.99 trillion ($2.93 trillion) by the end of July, data from an industry association showed.

The figure was up RMB1.1 trillion, or 6.15%, from the end of the previous month, according to the Asset Management Association of China (AMAC).

By the end of July, the number of registered privately offered funds had risen by 2,927 from one month earlier to 111,775.

A total of 24,326 institutions managed these privately offered funds, the AMAC data showed.

Source: Asset Management Association of China

Singapore’s GIC, through its sovereign wealth enterprise RECO Investor, entered into an agreement with an ESR Cayman unit and APG Asset Management (APG Strategic Real Estate Pool) to jointly invest as much as $1 billion initially, in warehousing and industrial properties in China.

The platform is called the New China Development Platform, a fund that will invest in warehousing or warehousing and industrial mixed-use properties in China that will be sourced, developed and managed by the ESR Cayman group of companies.

Source: Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute

HONG KONG

Manulife, the second-biggest insurer in Hong Kong, will open a 7,300-square-foot centre at the Gateway in the Tsim Sha Tsui commercial district this month to cater to high-net-worth individuals, tripling the size of its previous footprint. 

The move is part of the insurer's plans to capture new opportunities fuelled by rising affluence in the Greater Bay Area, said Damien Green, its chief executive for Hong Kong and Macau.

Manulife has generated more than one-third of the group’s core earnings from Asia in 2020, with an annualised premium sales of $2.9 billion. It has a 10,800-strong agency force in Hong Kong, or about 10% of its strength across the region. It grew its assets under management in Asia by 16% to $108 billion.

Source: South China Morning Post

JAPAN

Japan’s new 10 trillion yen ($91 billion) university fund is looking to invest in alternative assets and foreign stocks, as it seeks returns that would trump those of the country’s more conservative pension funds.

The university fund aims to start operations by the end of March. Chief investment officer Masakazu Kita wants the fund’s portfolio to include at least some alternative assets, such as private equity, real estate or infrastructure, and could also invest in hedge funds.

Source: Bloomberg

KOREA

Korea Post has opened a tender for a 600 billion won ($515 million) venture capital mandate for its insurance unit.

The government postal agency is seeking three asset managers for the mandate, which is structured as a blind fund with an investment period of eight years. At least 30% of the fund’s assets must be allocated to digital investments, Korea Post says in its request for proposal on August 9.

Source: Asia Asset Management

Korea Investment Corporation divested the entirety of 2.9 million shares in Alibaba Group Holding - the 25th-biggest United States-listed stock it was holding earlier this year - during the second quarter of this year, a filing showed.

The quarterly report, submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, also indicated that its positions toward US-listed Chinese technology stocks were mixed at the end of June, before Beijing’s sweeping crackdown on Chinese firms began to materialize in July.

Source: The Korea Herald

MALAYSIA

Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional announced a 6 billion ringgit ($1.4 billion) internal fund for high-impact and commercially viable investments. It aims to deploy the funds over the next five years to help build up the nation’s economic competitiveness and resilience.

The allocation will be funded through profits and capital returned from its commercial investments while it continues with its divestment and portfolio rebalancing strategy.

Khazanah said it will include clear development-specific target outcomes in addition to its existing financial targets.

Source: Reuters

NEW ZEALAND

New Zealand Super has laid out its responsible investing approach, which states that its focus will tend to exclusion when controversies arise.

The NZ$58 billion fund said that it has joined an investor initiative on Myanmar, calling on companies to map out their business activities, relationships and investments in the country and assess human rights risks they might be linked to.

The fund joins 80 other investors and asset managers with $4 trillion assets under management in signing the investor statement on human rights and business activities in Myanmar, which has been under Junta rule since February.

In May, the super fund came uder fire for holding $100 million in compaines linked to Myanmar.

Source: New Zealand Super

SINGAPORE

Temasek priced a 50-year security, the longest ever Singapore bond. It raised S$1.5 billion ($1.1 billion) at 2.8% yield, compared with an initial pricing in the area of 2.85%.

Last month it raised $2.5 billion in a three-tranche U.S.-dollar deal that included a 40-year part.

Temasek issued the bond through its wholly-owned subsidiary Temasek Financial (I) Ltd. It will provide the proceeds to Temasek and its investment holding companies to fund their ordinary course of business, it said in a filing.

Temasek also issued a 50-year, $1 billion US dollar offering last year.

Source: Bloomberg

GIC invested an additional IDR1.4 trillion (approximately $94 million) into Indonesian e-commerce Bukalapak ahead of its listing on the Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX) on August 6. The new injection brought its stake up to 11%.

Bukalapak raised $1.52 billion in its IPO, five times its original target. It is the first unicorn to list on the IDX.

Kreatif Media Karya, API Investment and GIC are Bukalapak’s top shareholders and together own 46% of the company. All GIC investments in Bukalapak have been routed through its subsidiary Archipelago Investment.

Source: DealStreetAsia

TAIWAN

China Development Financial Holding on Thursday (August 12 ) said that it is seeking to complete the takeover of China Life Insurance by the end of this year by acquiring all remaining shares of the firm via a share swap.

The companies’ boards of directors approved the proposed share swap, in which one common share of China Life would be exchanged for 0.8 common shares of China Development, plus 0.73 preferred shares of China Development and a cash bonus of NT$11.5 per share, they said.

China Development would issue 2.07 billion new common shares and 1.89 billion new preferred shares that would be exchanged for China Life’s common shares, they said.

China Development said it would consider several options, including issuing corporate bonds, to fund the deal.

Through two tender offers completed in September 2017 and in February this year, China Development boosted its stake in China Life to 55.95%

Source: Taipei Times

 

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