Global Fund Managers Have High Interest In Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 24 (Bernama) -- Global fund managers have a high level of interest in Malaysia given the massive growth opportunities and developed infrastructure of its equities market. Maybank Kim Eng Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO) John Chong said sentiments amongst global fund managers were positive towards Malaysia as the market had been relatively resilient in comparison to regional peers. A joint statement by Maybank Kim Eng and Bursa Malaysia (Malaysia's Stock Exchange) said Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak led the Invest Malaysia 2016 Conversation in San Francisco on Feb 17 involving 16 global fund managers with total assets under management of over US$7 trillion, hosted by Bursa Malaysia and Maybank Kim Eng. "Majority of the fund houses represented are long-only funds and have a high level of interest in Malaysia considering our equities market offers the growth opportunities of an emerging market, but the market infrastructure and regulatory framework are of a developed market. "There are also many regional companies in Malaysia, and investing in these companies will provide investors indirect exposure to the ASEAN market," he said. Meanwhile, Bursa Malaysia CEO Tajuddin Atan said the markets were continuously jostling for their share-of-wallet of the same global, as well as domestic, liquidity pools. "With Malaysia making up only 3.22 per cent of the MSCI AC Asia-Pacific ex Japan Index, we have to work hard to ensure we capture our share and more investment flows from large global funds such as the ones we met in Singapore, Hong Kong, London and San Francisco more recently. "To this end, Bursa Malaysia is committed to working with key broker partners, policy makers, regulators and listed companies to communicate the Malaysia Story and get the facts on the table directly to global fund managers through our Invest Malaysia Capital Market Conversation platform," he added. Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Abdul Wahid Omar led the Invest Malaysia 2016 Conversations series in the first three financial centres of Hong Kong, Singapore and London earlier this month. The conversations included 103 fund managers from 79 global funds with total assets under management of over US$20 trillion. --BERNAMA