Photo/Shetuwang 

Nov.23 (NBD) -- Mirae Asset Investment Management Shanghai, a unit under South Korea's Mirae Asset Financial Group, has been listed as a private fund management wholly foreign-owned enterprise by the Asset Management Association of China.

The Seoul-based company became the 16th overseas financial company which got its branch registered as a private equity manager in China following global giants including Fidelity, UBS, BlackRock and Bridgewater, since the country's government alleviated related fund market regulations two years ago.

Founded in 1997, Mirae Asset Financial Group is one of the largest stock investor in emerging markets worldwide. The group set foot on the Chinese market by setting up its Hong Kong unit in 2003 and qualified as a QFII (Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor) in 2008.

It is noted that foreign equity management companies are pacing up their presence in the A-share market. So far, a total of 25 private equity funds have been released by the overseas equity management giants. In addition, QFII has also seen upped stake in A-shares.

According to financial statistics platform Choice, as of this September, QFIIs were seen in the top 10 largest holders of 286 floating stocks, holding a total of 7.71 billion shares compared with 7.604 billion as of late 2017.

Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund, released an internal report in October titled The Shift to Chinese Assets Is Beginning, underlining that the allocation of global assets in China accounts for less than 10 percent of that in four economies, namely the US, Europe, Japan and China. That indicates there is enough room for improvement.

Besides, the world's largest asset manager BlackRock released a weekly investment report, saying that it is time to consider Chinese technology stocks as the long-term potential in Chinese tech firms may be underappreciated. The asset manager advocates digging deeper than the index-dominating mega-cap names in China to uncover opportunities in smaller software and services firms.

Li Jinlong, fund manager of Regan Fund, expressed similar views to NBD. Li held that as more A-shares are included into the MSCI index, related constituents will attract an increasing flow of capital from foreign investors. Besides, foreign investors favor the shares that are most representative of China's economy.

As China's economic reform deepens and the technology innovation board is one step closer, technology stocks will be good targets, Li added.

Email: tanyuhan@nbd.com.cn