Matthews Asia has been awarded a Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) license by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) and a US$100 million quota from the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE).
The award of a QFII license and quota enables the firm to invest, on behalf of its clients, up to US$100 million directly into China’s domestic securities market, including the market for China A-shares. Currently, direct investments into this market by foreign investors can only be made with a QFII license and quota. The quota will be made available to funds managed by the company, including its US-domiciled open-ended equity mutual fund family, Matthews Asia Funds.
China’s A-share market is the fifth largest public equity market in the world. It consists of over 2,300 companies totalling approximately US$2.6 trillion in market capitalization1 and offers investors the opportunity to invest directly into a growing market of companies that are benefiting from China’s economic transformation. The breadth and depth of the market also presents a much bigger pool of investment opportunities compared to Chinese companies listed on the H-share market in Hong Kong or the B-Share markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen.
The A-share market is considerable, but Matthews Asia believes that significant improvements in corporate governance standards are still required. The firm believes this supports the need to conduct extensive due diligence on prospective investments and highlights the value of taking a long-term active management approach.
Matthews Asia is a specialist investment manager located in San Francisco. With US$26.6 billion in assets under management as of June 30, 2014, the firm focuses on long-term investing solely in Asia.