Invesco is by no means the only international fund management firm to have signed up for a joint venture with domestic institutions in China [see table below]. In fact, Invesco Great Wall Fund Management is not even the largest fund.
Several existing businesses boast assets under management of more than $1 billion, including joint ventures such as those between Dutch bank ING and China Merchant Securities, Dutch/Belgian asset manager Fortis Investments and Haitong Securities, and France's Société Générale and Fortune Trust & Investment.
There are currently 12 fully operational Sino-foreign fund management joint ventures. Recent market entrants include UBS, which opened its China joint venture with SDIC Hongtai Trust & Investment by taking a 49% stake in UBS SDIC Fund Management in April of this year, and Deutsche Bank, which signed a joint venture agreement a month earlier with one of China's largest domestic asset managers, Harvest Fund Management.
Several deals are also rumoured to be in the pipeline, including a joint venture between Schroders and Bank of Communications and CSFB, Industrial Commercial Bank of China and Cosco. Other deals are already signed, but are still awaiting the approval of China's Securities and Regulatory Commission, such as the Commonwealth Bank of Australia's tie-up through its First State Investments subsidiary with Hantong Securities, and HSBC Investments' agreement with Shanxi Trust & Investment Corp.