HK investment veterans launch Mount Logan Capital
A new Hong Kong-based fund manager, Mount Logan Capital, got the green light to start operating last week from the local Securities and Futures Commission (SFC).
The firm’s management includes a trio of industry veterans: Desmond Tjiang, formerly a managing director at PineBridge Investments; Raphael Wu, ex-chief investment officer at AP Asset Management; and Stanley Kwok, the former chief executive of Lippo Investments Management.
Mount Logan received licences for asset management and advising on securities on August 1, when Tjiang and Wu became the firm’s responsible officers.
Kwok describes Mount Logan on his LinkedIn page as an “income-oriented asset management firm” with global market exposure that targets international institutional, family office and individual professional investors.
Other hedge fund start-ups in Hong Kong this year include Anatole Investment Management, a pan-Asia equity long/short manager that received its SFC licence in late May, and global macro player Jomon, which won its licence in February.
There have not been many new launches this year, particularly by brand-new managers, said Michael Langton, head of sales and marketing at Hong Kong-based Quality Risk Management & Operations, which services hedge fund managers.
But there are a lot of fourth-quarter launches planned, he told AsianInvestor, though it is likely that many will get pushed back by around six months. “So Q1 and Q2 2017 could see a good pop as bottled-up demand releases some pressure.”
Langton added that there had been a number of closures, “so that money will hopefully be recycled into the newer mangers, as a lot of the larger and more established managers have hit their caps”.
Tjiang had been a portfolio manager for Hong Kong and Greater China equities at PineBridge, having joined the US firm in September 2011. Before that had been CIO for Asia ex-Japan equities at BNP Paribas Investment Partners. Tjiang has also worked as an analyst at both UBS and Franklin Templeton.
Before joining AP AM in January 2015, Wu had been a senior portfolio manager at Citi and director in the investment team at French fund house Amundi, according to his LinkedIn page. He has also worked as an economist for BNP Paribas, Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette, and UBS.
Kwok spent five years as CEO of Lippo IM, before which he had worked for State Street Global Advisors as a portfolio manager and analyst, according to his LinkedIn page.
He is also currently co-CIO of Hong Kong-based AFC Investments, the Hong Kong arm of Agricultural Fund of China, a private equity manager focused on China’s agricultural industry.