Man AHL, the pioneering quantitative investment unit of London-listed global hedge fund giant Man Group, has been given the green light for a qualified foreign institutional investor license in China.
The QFII license will give Man AHL’s investment strategies based outside of China greater access to the country’s domestic capital markets, complementing other existing access routes such as Stock Connect and China Interbank Bond Market access.
The approval – which is the latest development in Man’s long-running focus on China – will provide clients and strategies with “valuable additional diversification and alpha-generation opportunities,” said Man AHL co-CEO Antoine Forterre.
Man Group opened its first local office in China in 2012, later establishing a base in Shanghai the following year when it became one of the first alternative investment managers to be granted a quota to raise funds from qualified Chinese investors for overseas investment under the Shanghai Qualified Domestic Limited Partnership (QDLP) scheme.
Man AHL – a long-running systematic hedge fund pioneer which manages a range of quantitative and CTA strategies – began to advise onshore portfolios in China in 2014.
It later launched its first private fund management investment strategy in China in 2017, a systematic trend-following-based vehicle managed by Man AHL’s Shanghai-based investment professionals.
Co-CEO Forterre said Man AHL is one of a select few systematic investment managers to now hold a QFII license so far, which will further open up China’s highly-developed and liquid onshore markets.
“We feel this license provides our strategies and clients with valuable additional diversification and alpha-generation opportunities, and further enables us to participate in China’s continued growth,” Forterre said.
Established in 1987, Man AHL today manages around USD36.4 billion in assets, trading more than 750 markets and managing assets for institutional and private clients globally.
