China

UBS Plans China Expansion With Wholly Owned Mutual Fund

Ralph Hamers, UBS chief executive since November 2020, is willing to make new bets in China partly due to the success there of Dutch lender ING, which he ran previously. File photo: Reuters.

Switzerland’s UBS Group is seeking to expand its China footprint with a wholly-owned mutual fund business expected to launch in the next two years.

UBS aims to enter the country’s $3.9 trillion retail fund market, sources said, and the bank’s asset management arm has begun hiring key personnel.

Ralph Hamers, UBS chief executive since November 2020, is willing to make new bets in China partly due to the success there of Dutch lender ING, which he ran previously.

The new activity will expand a UBS presence in China that already includes a mutual fund joint venture and a private fund business.

It comes amid intensifying competition in the fund industry in the world’s second-largest economy, heightened by the scrapping of foreign ownership caps two years ago.

BlackRock launched a wholly-owned fund unit in China in June 2021. Global rivals, including Fidelity International and Schroders, are in the process of doing the same.

Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan are moving towards full control of their existing China fund joint ventures.

Reuters, with additional editing by George Russell

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George Russell

George Russell is a freelance writer and editor based in Hong Kong who has lived in Asia since 1996. His work has been published in the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, New York Post, Variety, Forbes and the South China Morning Post.