Harden joins from ING Investment Management Ltd where he was chief executive officer of the Asia-Pacific business, comprising 1,200 staff across 10 countries, with $85 billion in assets under management.

“Alan has the skills and experience to lead the expansion of BNY Mellon Asset Management in Asia-Pacific as we continue to grow our retail offerings and institutional business in the region,” Arledge said. “Alan has strong credentials and is widely respected in the region having spent over 20 years in Asia and the Middle East in a variety of leadership positions. He has already demonstrated his ability to manage an Asian investment management business through a range of economic environments, including the recent financial crisis.”
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Harden, who is also named a member of BNY Mellon Asset Management’s executive committee, will be based in Hong Kong. In this new position for the company, he will have responsibility for all distribution, strategic, financial and operating plans and business development across Asia-Pacific for BNY Mellon Asset Management. He will support BNY Mellon Asset Management’s relationship with key clients in the region, including sovereign wealth funds. In addition he will work closely with BNY Mellon’s chairman of Asia-Pacific, Steve Lackey, in delivering the whole firm and ensuring clients have greater awareness and access to the company’s leading capabilities. Harden will also join the company’s Asia-Pacific Executive Committee which comprises the heads of each of BNY Mellon’s businesses in the region.
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Mitchell Harris, president of investment management at BNY Mellon, said: “The Asia-Pacific region continues to exhibit strong growth for investment management companies and is home to some of the most sophisticated investors globally. Alan’s depth of experience will help drive our business forward and sustain our momentum in meeting and exceeding our clients’ investment expectations. Placing a senior member of our Asset Management team in the region is a strong statement of our commitment and desire to deepen our relationships with clients.”
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Prior to joining ING, Harden served as chief executive officer of Alliance Trust PLC and was head of Citigroup Asset Management’s Asia-Pacific operations. He was a non-executive board member of the Court of St. Andrews University, a trustee of the Al Maktoum Institute of Aberdeen University (he remains an honorary fellow), and a non-executive trustee of the Scottish Community Charity Foundation. He is an Honorary Professor of the School of Finance and Accounting at Dundee University.
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BNY Mellon has been conducting business in the Asia-Pacific region for over 50 years. The company has 16 offices in 12 countries in the region, including full-service branches in Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul, Taipei, Melbourne and Sydney, and employs around 7,000 employees. Businesses represented in the Asia-Pacific region include asset servicing, asset management, treasury services, depositary receipts, corporate trust, broker-dealer services, alternative investment services and global markets.

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Andrew Gordon, head of BNY Mellon’s Alternative Investment Services in Asia looks at the pressures impacting the hedge fund and private equity industry and what the drivers of growth are in 2011.

“The global low interest rate environment is driving institutional investors and pension funds to seek alternative sources of returns, driving an increase in appetite for alternatives in emerging markets, especially in Asia.

“In what could perhaps be described as a relatively tougher capital raising environment for hedge funds globally, 2010 saw the continuation of a paradigm change in the industry – where large institutions, especially those in Asia, including Japan, Australia, New Zealand and India, as well as the rest of the world are focusing an increased degree of attention on hedge fund opportunities, with increasing numbers of investors making their first investments in the alternatives space in the region – and this is a trend that is expected to continue well into 2011.

“An increasing number of large institutions including sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and life insurance companies are shifting their allocations to alternatives, as they seek better returns and portfolio diversification. The majority of those who have not done so are also actively looking around to identify the right fund managers to invest with.  In addition to the funds’ investment track record, what attracts these large institutions would be the business and operational track records of fund managers and the level of transparency that they can provide to their investors in terms of day-to-day reporting.

Transparency and risk management increasingly top of institutions lists

“Global investors continue to invest time and resources in the due diligence process with hedge funds in the region, looking into non-investment aspects of the managers including corporate governance, transparency and risk management.  This trend is likely to accelerate in 2011 as a number of high profile funds folded during the first half of 2010 and a multitude of insider trading cases emerged in the latter half.

“Investors, especially large global institutions, are looking to gain increased insight into their fund managers, looking beyond the traditional aspects of performance data to get into the bottom of how sustainable the team, business and strategies are. Looking through 2011, we believe we will be seeing more robust outlook and increased capital raising activities in those Asian hedge fund managers who have invested or are willing to invest in institutionalising themselves, that is, building up the infrastructure of their business for greater transparency, corporate governance and risk management, and making sure these insights are accessible to investors.

“The global hedge fund industry is institutionalizing and this trend is moving from the U.S. and Europe rapidly into Asia. This is what we believe will eventually and effectively differentiate winners from losers in the marketplace, specifically for those smaller hedge funds from the region. Post financial crisis, global hedge funds are also reviewing their presences in Asia, with a number opening offices in Hong Kong and Singapore, competition intensifies more rapidly than ever.

Private equity expected to mirror hedge fund trends

“Many of the same investors are also active in private equity, and we see similar themes. We are talking to a number of large institutional allocators to private equity in many parts of Asia, and they are seeking help to standardise and manage the increased flow of information and data that they are increasingly demanding from their managers. As with hedge funds, they trust their mangers, but are looking for independent verification of the value that their managers are bringing to the portfolios they manage – whether a company that a private equity fund has purchased, or a listed security that a hedge fund manager has taken a position in.”

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