UBS Eyes Asia With First Hong Kong ETF Listing

04 Mar 2013

UBS is gearing up to list its first exchange-traded funds in Hong Kong, backed by a new local fund platform, as the investment bank looks to take advantage of the growing Asia-Pacific ETF market.

The Swiss bank is planning to list a number of ETFs on the Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing in the second half of this year, following its launch of a new ETF arm in the region with the hiring of a Hong Kong sales team.

The new listings will be made up of local ETF products, to attract local investors, and the bank will also consider listing products in Singapore at a later date.

UBS’s Asia-Pacific presence is acknowledged as one of the strongest among western banks in the region.

Clemens Reuter, UBS ETF head, said: “The Asia-Pacific ETF market is growing and we want to take advantage of this with our own offering in the region.

“We started with Australia and Korea last year and now want to develop this into Hong Kong to target local institutional investors. We would like to take market share in Asia and we want to make sure that we are positioning ourselves to do so.

“We are committed to bringing UBS ETFs to where our clients are – and in the way they want them. We give our clients the convenience of choice and trading ETFs at their local stock exchange.”

Asia-Pacific’s portion of total ETF assets under management, ex-Japan, grew from 3.7% of global market share in 2011 to 4.5% last year, according to consultancy ETFGI.

UBS has focused its ETF business on four core markets: Switzerland, Italy, Germany and the UK. However, it has products available in 13 countries and launched its first ETF product offering in Australia and Korea last October.

At the close of last year, UBS had around €12bn in ETF assets under management around the world, making it the sixth largest ETF provider in Europe, with a market share of 3.7%, according to ETFGI.

The Swiss bank is also planning to launch around 20 new ETF products in Europe this year.

Source: http://www.efinancialnews.com/story/2013-03-04/ubs-asia-etf-listing?mod=sectionheadlines-IB-AM