SinoPac Financial Holdings Co (永豐金控), the Taiwanese company whose business spans banking, securities and asset management, plans to set up a fund administration unit in Hong Kong targeting smaller hedge and private-equity funds.
The unit plans to start serving clients from December after regulatory filings, said Steve Bernstein, a former Citigroup Inc executive who will lead the business, pending board approval.
SinoPac is targeting more than 1,000 hedge and private-equity funds, as well as family offices and wealth management companies, in the Asia-Pacific region which oversee less than US$100 million, Bernstein said.
“About 85 percent of the funds out there have below US$100 million of assets under management,” Bernstein, 51, said in a telephone interview.
“The bigger funds all have great services. The small funds either have to go to multiple providers for different services or they are getting charged a lot,” he said.
The unit, tentatively named SinoPac Solutions+Services Ltd, may expand into accounting, administration, trade execution and compliance, he said.
Additionally, SinoPac will help small funds find legal advice and provide custody clearing, he said.
It may also bring small funds under the umbrella of SinoPac’s asset management division, helping them raise capital through the company’s sales force and wealth management network, he added.
Two new Asian hedge funds have expressed interest in becoming clients of the unit in the first quarter next year, Bernstein said, declining to identify them as the discussions are private. It initially targets adding one client a month.
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