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New fund managers at Credit Agricole

CIO Ray Jovanovich gets help for India, Korea and Taiwan.
Credit Agricole Asset Management has hired three portfolio managers in Hong Kong. Some are replacements, others are additions to the team, says Raymond Chan, investment director at the firm.

The firm, which manages around $6.5 billion in Asian and Australian securities out of Hong Kong and Singapore, decided it needed someone dedicated to its growing Indian equities portfolios. To date, the firmÆs regional CIO, Ray Jovanovich, has overseen this work.

CAAM has hired Sidharth (Sid) Mahapatra to manage the India portfolios, including a new one launched in January that raised $400 million worldwide. He joins from JPMorgan, where he had been a salesman on the equities desk, selling the firmÆs India and Asian capabilities. He had worked at JPMorgan since 2000, both in Mumbai and Hong Kong. From 1994 to 2000, he was a research analyst at HSBC in Mumbai.

Raymond Chan says that while Mahapatra is new to running portfolios, he has deep knowledge of the Indian market and understands the business of asset management, and Jovanovich will act as his mentor.

Jovanovich has also needed to plug some holes with the departure of Quan Shaoping, a portfolio manager responsible for Korea and Taiwan who reportedly left for UBS Private Bank. To that end, two new fund managers will start in July, both to replace Quan as well as to give the firm extra firepower; their arrival will boost the Hong Kong and Singapore teams of analysts and fund managers to 12. All the new hires, as well as Raymond Chan, report to Jovanovich.

Kim Jeong-Nam will run the Korea country portfolios. He has just completed an advanced degree at the University of Chicago. He worked for five years at CAAMÆs joint venture in Korea, Nonghyup CA Asset Management, as a senior analyst. He has also run portfolios for Mirae Asset in Seoul.

David Chen will cover Taiwan and regional technology portfolios. He has worked at Allianz Global InvestorsÆ RCM unit for the past four years in Taipei and Hong Kong, as a regional tech analyst. He has also worked at Yuanda Securities in Taiwan.
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