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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Vanguard to close Hong Kong, Japan operations |
| 2020-08-27 |
| [Yahoo Finance] U.S. asset manager Vanguard Group said on Wednesday it will close its operations in Hong Kong and Japan and exit Hong Kong exchange-traded funds, citing unsupportive "industry dynamics". The fund giant, with about $5 trillion in assets, said in a statement that its Hong Kong business primarily served institutional clients and not retail investors, which are its primary focus. It said the exit would happen gradually and take between 6 months to two years. Vanguard, which launched a wholly foreign-owned enterprise (WFOE) in China in May 2017, said it will "gradually cease (its) onshore presence in Hong Kong and make an orderly exit" from its Hong Kong ETF, Mandatory Provident Fund and Index-Tracking Investment Schemes businesses. Hong Kong is home to Vanguard's Asian headquarters. The index fund giant closed its Singapore operation in 2018. In a separate statement, a spokesman confirmed that Vanguard would also close in Japan, and shift its primary office in Asia to Shanghai. "Our future focus in Asia is on Mainland China," the spokesman said in an email. Vanguard's closure plans were first reported on Wednesday by Ignites Asia, a Financial Times service. |
| Posted by:Frank G |
| #2 Well you can see from text they are shifting to China. |
| Posted by: Thorong Grundy1520 2020-08-27 16:04 |
| #1 HK has, for a long time, been the comfortable plush "front office" operations and marketing/sales face for companies that had moved manufacturing first and then accounting, IT, operations and other management to Shenzhen and other places in southern China. Hong Kong was sort of the insurance policy for the ChiComs with regards to the West but, with the abrogation of the one country two systems agreement from when HK changed over from British to Chinese sovereignty and the draconian Nat Sec law in HK recently, that junk seems to have sailed. The Vanguard decision may not be directly caused by the Chinese heavy HK hand - but probably made it easier. They are index funds anyway so probably can manage from almost anywhere. Their joint venture with Ant hopes to have a dual listing IPO in HK and Shanghai. HK will become more of a second fiddle to Shanghai probably as the financial center of the heathen Chinee - for better or worse. |
| Posted by: York Harding 2020-08-27 11:22 |