The Bank of China International (BoCI) Securities has launched a prime brokerage business targeting Chinese hedge funds.
The news was initially reported by Asian Investor. The new business is born out of the merger of existing several services of BoCI, which will seek to leverage existing clients from the banks private banking and investment banking units.
The new business will target hedge funds with up to $100 million in assets and will do its own due diligence on managers.
“Fund managers already have wide distribution channels comprising commercial and retail banks,” said Graham Ng, deputy head of equity sales and research, in an interview with AI. “But for start-up Chinese hedge funds targeting money from offshore Chinese investors, their needs are often not met by bulge-bracket investment banks’ prime financing and that is where we feel we have a niche.”
In preparation for the new business, BoCIs securities lending and margin financing were combined with execution, trading and custody services.
(JDC)