E Fund, Bosera, Lippo shuffle senior roles

E Fund’s Hong Kong arm has poached Bosera International's deputy chief executive, David Zhang, to take up the newly created roles of chief investment officer and deputy CEO.

This is with a view to expanding its overseas business – E Fund's next move is to list its first RQFII ETF in London tracking the MSCI China A Index, on May 19.

Shenzhen-based Bosera has replaced Zhang with Conrad Cheng, who joined in March as deputy CEO and chief portfolio strategist. Previously Cheng was CIO at Lippo Investments Management, a Hong Kong-based fund of exchange-traded funds firm.

Zhang joined E Fund last month to oversee investment strategy, including the qualified institutional investor (QFII), renminbi-denominated QFII and segregated accounts businesses. He is also responsible for business development outside Hong Kong.

E Fund is seeking to diversify its business because the renminbi QFII (RQFII) scheme will cease to be the only channel to directly access China’s onshore securities market after the Shanghai-Hong Kong stocks connect scheme is launched, as is expected in September.

The firm plans to put more emphasis on the US, Europe and wider Asian markets, says Zhang. “On the product side, we want to launch actively managed funds to differentiate ourselves.”

In the meantime, the firm is seeking to expand its investment team with the hire of one or two mid-level executives in its seven-strong research and investment team, which manages over Rmb10 billion.

Zhang joined Bosera International in 2009 as deputy director and portfolio manager in its fixed-income department, and was appointed as deputy CEO in March 2013 to head its Hong Kong office.

He previously worked in the US and has held various investment positions at Deutsche Asset Management, Citi Alternative Investments and Pimco.

At Lippo IM, portfolio engineer Bruce Cheung was promoted to investment director to replace Cheng. Before joining Lippo in November 2011, Cheung worked for HSBC in Hong Kong for four years, most recently as director of HSBC Structured Funds (Asia).

This follows the departure from Lippo IM last year of chief executive Stanley Kwok, whose current whereabouts could not be ascertained, and of head of business development Sammy Yip, who joined UBS Global Asset Management in August.

There are no plans to replace Kwok as yet. David Ng has since been appointed a director, while Joyce Lui has been named business development manager – both were internal appointments.