The crocodiles are coming

摘要

ERIC WONG, who helps run his Hong Kong family's money through an investment office, tcg Capital, looks like a hedge-fund manager's dream. He's rich, young and, having been to university there, comfortable with American ways-just the type of investor that Western hedge funds looking for Asian expansion have set their sights on. He is not, however, very interested. Real estate is the "best pension plan my family ever had," he says. Why change?Where they are not greeted with apathy, Asia-minded hedge funds often face antipathy. Since the financial crisis of the late 1990s "fund" has been a four-letter word throughout Asia. George Soros, a famous hedge-fund investor, is still reviled for aggravating and profiting from the crisis. When the Chinese refer to hedge funds as ju e, or "big crocodiles", it is not by way of a compliment on their killer instincts. Despite muted interest and outright scorn, though, more and more hedge-fund managers are determined to make their mark on Asia. They see a lot of money to be made, a lack of entrenched competition and a vast number of potential clients. Ravenous growth and maturing equity and credit markets should mean Asia offers a lot of opportunities. "Our investable universe has doubled in the last five years," says one happy executive at a fund that recently launched in Hong Kong. At the same time there is little by way of an asset-management industry in much of Asia. Investors' portfolios mostly consist of just property and stocks, which leaves lots of room for hedge funds' offerings. And there are vast numbers of millionaires to whom such offers can be made.