After opening an office in Hong Kong this week, Ivy Asset Management Corp., a hedge fund of funds and alternative investment management unit of BNY Mellon Asset Management, said its expansion in Asia is far from complete.
"The intention is …to continue to establish ourselves as a global fund of hedge fund provider," said Patrick Thomson, the Jericho, N.Y., company's managing director and head of client development in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. "I think our goal reflects the globalized nature of the hedge fund industry."
More than 40% of Ivy's $15 billion of assets under management is outside of the United States. "We expect growth outside of the U.S. to continue and that number in percentage terms will also go up," Mr. Thomson said.
The Hong Kong office is Ivy's sixth overall and third outside the United States. It has no immediate plans to open another office abroad.
Ivy opened a Tokyo office in 2004 and began full-scale operations in London in 2003. Ivy had been sold to Bank of New York Co. Inc. in 1999, and in July 2007 Bank of New York and Mellon Financial Corp. of Pittsburgh merged to become Bank of New York Mellon Corp.
In November, Ivy hired Alex Balfour for the newly created position of managing director and head of client development, Asia Ex-Japan.
The creation of that post illustrated that BNY Mellon Asset Management was still committed to Ivy's expansion throughout the Pacific Rim after the merger.
By being in more markets, Ivy will be able to attract alternative investment managers and customers in different regions, Mr. Thomson said.
"We want people to understand that we can service institutional clients in multiple time zones," he said.
Ivy expects Asia to be a "key source of business growth" for years to come, he said.
The Hong Kong office will provide hedge fund and customized services to institutional and high-net-worth investors across the Asia Pacific region. Ivy plans to add research professionals, client service managers and operations staff to the office.
The office will be headed by Mr. Balfour, who had been a managing director and head of the Asian institutional business at Unioncaire Privee since 2006. Previously he founded Balfour Capital, an Asian hedge fund that he ran for eight years.
Ivy is one of several investment mangers expanding internationally as U.S. equity markets continue to sag.
On Tuesday, Franklin Resources Inc.'s Franklin Templeton Investments announced that it had bought a 49% stake in Vietcombank Fund Management. Franklin already had offices in China, India, Japan, Korea, and Singapore.
Both Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. and Credit Suisse Group announced this month that they had obtained licenses to trade securities in Vietnam, and Morgan Stanley bought a 49% share of Gateway Securities, a Vietnamese brokerage firm.
Ron O'Hanley, BNY Mellon Asset Management's chief executive, told American Banker last week that his company expects to generate more than half of its revenue from outside of the United States within the next three or four years and that it expects to achieve that goal without further acquisitions.
Ivy has no imminent plans to expand into Vietnam but will continue to keep its eye on the region, Mr. Thomson said.
"While we are certainly interested in managers that invest across the Asian Pacific region," he said, "we are quite cautious of managers that invest in relatively undeveloped capital markets. One of our primary goals when we are looking at managers is their ability to hedge or protect assets, and for that to happen efficiently, it requires an efficient capital markets structure."
Ivy's moves in the region are not influenced by BNY Mellon Asset Management's preference to grow organically outside the United States, Mr. Thomson said. Ivy, like all of BNY Mellon Asset Management's subsidiaries, sets its own strategy, he said.
"Growing and expanding in Asia was the next evolutionary step for us," he said. "We had an office in Tokyo for years, and" opening the Hong Kong office "was the next logical step."
International investors are interested in alternative investment products produced by well-established U.S. companies, Mr. Thomson said. "We are trying to capture a share of the business, and this industry continues to globalize."
