Foreign private equity CTA strategy has more advantages

Foreign private equity has been in the A-share market for some time, but from the perspective of the industry, it is still in the stage of development. Although foreign private equity is well-known, in the field of traditional stock and bond investment, "foreign private equity" has not enough performance in China, and local private equity has more advantages. And foreign private equity also said that in the process of expanding business in China, localization and different investor concepts are the biggest tests. However, in terms of macro and CTA strategies, local institutions admit that foreign private equity has more advantages.

Equity and bond strategies does not have advantages

There are differences in compliance and challenges in channels

"Big thunder and little rain" is the industry's evaluation on foreign private equity's entry into A shares. This is mainly based on the fact that foreign private equity does not have much advantage in the traditional stock and bond investment fields, and it does not pose too much challenge to local private equity.

Rongli Jia, director of the research and consulting department of China Merchants Securities and chief of financial product research, analyzed to reporters that with the rapid development of the private equity industry, domestic investors and financial institutions have become increasingly mature and rational. In addition to fame, whether they have real active management capabilities, whether they can successfully implement the localized application of overseas strategies in China, and effectively respond to the continuous development and change of China's financial market is the influence of foreign institutions in China. The core is also the main consideration factor for investors to purchase foreign private equity products.

She said that for investors, the difference between foreign private equity and local private equity is mainly reflected in the investment model, strategic logic, and systematic structure. The acceptance of the product by investors depends on the investment objective, quality, differentiation and scarcity of the product.

She believes that in the field of traditional stock and bond investment, local private equity managers have more advantages. "Local private equity managers have been cultivating the domestic market for a long time. In recent years, they have gradually expanded to multi-regional and multi-market configurations at domestic and abroad. They have longer-term investment performance, wider visibility and reputation, and increasingly mature investment capabilities, marketing and brand operations are improving day by day, becoming the focus for the allocation of domestic institutions and high-net-worth individuals." However, the performance of foreign capital in China is still not enough and has not yet shown a special advantage.

Rao Fu, Investment Research Director of Beijing Jinzhang Investment and Research, a subsidiary of Geshang, added that foreign investment naturally has some advantages in branding. If the performance is also relatively competitive, foreign investment will indeed be more acceptable. However, the cooperation of pure foreign investment is still relatively small.

management companies have been in the market for more than 20 years and have considerable advantages in fundraising, market operations and brand awareness. Second, due to the differences between overseas compliance and risk control requirements and the Chinese market, it needs to do more homework when linking legal documents with domestic channels. Third, the systems that they use abroad cannot be directly matched with those in China, and they need to be localized and adjusted according to the actual situation before they can connect with the channels.

Schroder Investment said that it faces three major challenges in terms of channel. The first is competition from local companies. Many domestic asset

UBS Asset Management also stated that from an investment perspective, taking hedge funds as an example, there are many differences between domestic regulatory frameworks, business concepts, operating methods, industry standards and overseas, which require communication, adaptation and adaptation.

Bo Hu, the manager said that although he is optimistic that foreign capital has lots of opportunities for development in China, it needs a long-term outstanding performance to prove its own process. Because investors are more concerned about whether foreign private equity’s familiarity with the Chinese market can adapt to the characteristics of the Chinese market. The investor structure in the Chinese market is dominated by retail investors. Whether the long-term value investment advocated by foreign private equity can adapt to A shares has not yet been fully achieved. prove.

Macro, CTA strategy has more advantages

The investment philosophy and compliance rules of foreign private equity are quite domestically recognized. Rongli Jia said that foreign-funded institutions generally attach importance to value investment, growth investment, and long-term investment based on corporate fundamentals. Their investment logic is relatively stable and their investment styles are relatively mature.

Rao Fu pointed out that foreign investment will pay more attention to compliance issues, so they will be more cautious in product operations.

Currently, foreign investment has more advantages in macro and CTA strategies. Rongli Jia pointed out that compared with local private equity, foreign capital has certain advantages in macro hedging, CTA and other strategies, especially large foreign institutions with a global macro vision, which can provide domestic investors with special products in terms of global perspective and systematic investment. Foreign-funded institutions have better fulfilled their established investment goals.

Bo Hu also added that the overall maturity of overseas markets is higher, and various derivatives are more abundant. Therefore, foreign private equity has greater advantages in asset allocation, strategic application, and quantitative investment.

UBS Asset Management stated that, compared with the more mature overseas markets, retail investors account for a larger share of China's stock and futures markets, and market efficiency needs to be improved. At the same time, it has good liquidity and large capacity. These factors provide opportunities for hedge funds to pursue absolute returns.

Localization and investor education are the biggest tests

Liang Shen, managing director of Allianz Investment and head of China's asset management business, said that the success of a strategy in a market mainly depends on three factors: investment tools, market environment and investor attitudes.

Liang Shen believes that China is a growing market. For a successful overseas strategy to be successfully introduced into China, it must take into account overseas experience and meet the needs of investors, and use mature global experience to match the characteristics of the Chinese market. "This is not a matter of choosing one or the other, but the two are indispensable."

From the perspective of three elements, in terms of investment tools, it is necessary to think about how to introduce Allianz Investment’s global successful flagship strategy, with the overall market environment and regulatory policies moving towards internationalization, and at the same time, in line with the needs of Chinese investors, whether through investor education or introduction of high-quality strategies to domestic investors to increase investor awareness and acceptance is a practice that takes into account Allianz's global experience and Chinese investors keep pace with the times.

UBS Asset Management said that from the domestic high-net-worth investors it contacts, domestic investors will still tend to pursue absolute returns, ignoring the degree of risk exposure of products, and lacking attention to risk-adjusted returns. "In fact, many products have good investment returns on their own, but investors do not get good investment returns. The reason is that some investors pursue absolute returns, but they may step on the wrong pace."

Therefore, in the domestic market, for individual investors, they will focus more on making absolute return products and make some strategies to control withdrawals. They also strive to provide more diversified products to domestic customers, and hope to engage more with them. Chinese investors emphasize the concept of asset allocation and long-term holding.

Value Partners Investment also stated that the challenge of developing asset management business in the Chinese market lies in the matching of the investor's capital maturity and the maturity of the investment strategy. In the view of value investors, holding high-quality assets that can generate good cash flow for a long time and hedge against fluctuations with time can often reap better returns. But most investors find it difficult to accept longer periods and focus too much on short-term fluctuations. The situation of “funds make money, but holders do not make money” is a common issue for the domestic fund management industry to deal with. To this end, they will continue to do a good job in investor service and communication, and jointly promote investor education.

Schroder Investment said that in the process of expanding its business in China, its ability to insight into the market and its ability to integrate overseas platforms and local resources are the most challengeable factors.

Liang Shen pointed out that the greater difficulty may lie in the relative differences between Chinese market tools and investors and overseas ones. However, Liang Shen also said that Allianz Investment's global investment and risk management capabilities combined with local experience can transform investment difficulties into advantages.

UBS Asset Management emphasized that "UBS's mature investment philosophy, investment process, and the investment research capabilities and platform support of the global investment research team have been applied to the local strategies. Our local strategy has never been a simple copy of overseas strategy, but based on the characteristics of the Chinese market, it is necessary to carry out strategic and tactical configuration and dynamic management through in-depth research and insight into China's private equity hedge funds."

外资私募CTA策略更具优势

外资私募进军A股已有一段时间，但在业内看来，目前仍处于“雷声大、雨点小”的阶段。虽然外资私募的名气大，但在传统的股票、债券投资领域，“洋私募”在华业绩尚短，本土私募更具优势。而外资私募也表示，在拓展中国业务过程中，本土化、投资者理念不同是最大的考验。不过，在宏观、CTA策略上，本土机构则承认，外资私募更占优势。

股债策略不占优势
合规存差异、渠道存挑战

"雷声大、雨点小”是业内对外资私募进军A股的评价。而这主要基于外资私募在传统的股票、债券投资领域，并没有太大的优势，更未对本土私募造成太大的挑战。

招商证券研究咨询部董事、金融产品研究首席贾戎莉向记者分析，随着私募行业的快速发展，国内的投资者与金融机构都日益成熟、理性。除名气外，是否拥有真正的主动管理能力、能否顺利实现海外策略在中国的本土化应用、以及对中国的金融市场不断发展变化的新情况的有效应对，才是外资机构在华影响力的核心，也是投资者购买外资私募产品的主要考量要素。

她表示，对于投资者而言，外资私募与本土私募的差异主要体现在投资模式、策略逻辑、系统化架构等方面。投资者对于产品的接受程度取决于产品的投资目标、质量、差异化和稀缺性。

她认为，在传统的股票、债券投资领域，本土私募管理人更具优势。“本土的私募管理人长期深耕境内市场，近年来也在逐步拓展至境内外多区域、多市场的配置，他们拥有更长期的投资业绩、更广泛的知名度与美誉度，投资能力日臻成熟，包括市场营销、品牌运营方面都在日益完善，成为境内机构和高净值人群的配置重点。”而外资在华的业绩尚短，目前尚未显示出特别优势。

格上旗下北京金樟投资投研总监付饶则补充，外资在品牌上天然有一些优势，如果同样在业绩比较有竞争力的情况下，外资确实会更容易被接受。但目前纯外资的合作还是比较少。

施罗德投资直言，在渠道对接方面面临三大挑战。第一是来自于本土企业的竞争。不少国内资产管理公司已在市场深耕二十余年，在募资渠道、市场运作以及品牌知名度方面颇具优势。第二，由于海外合规风控要求与中国市场存在差异，其在与国内渠道进行法律文本对接时，需要做更多功课。第三，他们在境外使用的系统无法与境内实现直接匹配，需要根据实际情况进行相关系统的本土化调整后，方可与渠道进行对接。


瑞银资管也表示，从投资角度而言，以对冲基金为例，国内监管框架、商业理念、运作方式、行业标准与海外都有很多的差异，需要沟通、磨合和适应。

私募排排网未来星基金经理胡泊也表示，虽然看好外资在国内具有非常大的发展空间，但需要一个长期的优秀业私募排排网绩来证明自己的过程。因为投资者比较担忧的还是外资私募对中国市场的熟悉程度能否适应中国市场的特点，中国市场的投资者结构是散户为主，外资私募倡导的长期价值投资能否适应A股，尚未得到充分证明。

宏观、CTA策略更具优势

外资私募的投资理念和合规则颇受国内认可。贾戎莉表示，外资机构普遍重视基于企业基本面的价值投资、成长投资、长期投资，其投资逻辑的稳定性较高，投资风格较为成熟。

付饶指出，外资投资的时候会更关注合规的问题，所以在产品运营的方面会更为审慎。

而目前阶段，外资在宏观、CTA等策略更具优势。贾戎莉指出，与本土私募相比，外资在宏观对冲、CTA等策略上具备一定的优势，尤其是具备全球宏观视野的大型外资机构，在全球视角和系统化投资方面可为境内投资者提供特色产品，外资机构较好的完成了其既定的投资目标。

胡泊也补充，海外市场的整体成熟度更高，各种衍生品也更为丰富，所以外资私募在资产配置、策略应用以及量化投资领域具有较大的优势。

瑞银资管表示，相对于海外更加成熟的市场，中国的股票和期货市场，零售投资者的占比较大，市场效率还有待提高，同时流动性好、容量大。这些因素为对冲基金追求绝对收益提供了丰厚的土壤。

本土化、投资者教育是最大的考验

安联投资董事总经理、中国资产管理业务负责人沈良表示，一个策略能否在一个市场成功，主要取决于三大要素：投资工具、市场环境及投资者态度。

沈良认为，中国是一个不断成长的市场。一个在海外成功的策略要引进中国取得成功，必须兼顾海外经验及顺应投资者需求，以成熟的全球经验配合中国市场的自身特点，“这不是二选一的问题，是二者缺一不可”。

就三个要素来看，投资工具方面，必须思考如何引进安联投资在全球成功的旗舰策略，搭配整体市场环境与监管政策迈向国际化的脚步，同时与中国投资者需求接轨，无论是通过投资者教育或引进优质策略介绍给国内投资者，提高投资者的认知度与接受度，都是兼顾安联投资的全球经验与中国投资者一同与时俱进的作法。

瑞银资管表示，从其接触的国内高净值投资者而言，国内投资者仍然会趋向于追求绝对回报，而忽略产品对风险暴露的程度，缺乏风险调整后收益的关注。“其实很多产品它本身投资收益很好，但投资者没有获得很好的投资收益，原因在于部分投资者一味追求绝对收益，反而有可能会踏错节奏。”

因此在国内市场，针对个人投资者，他们会更着重做一些绝对收益类产品，做一些控制回撤的策略，他们也力求提供更多元化的产品给到国内客户，并且希望更多地与中国投资者强调资产配置和长期持有的概念。

惠理投资也表示，在中国市场开展资产管理业务的挑战在于投资者资金期限与投资策略期限的匹配。在价值投资者看来，持有长期能产生良好现金流的优质资产，以时间对冲波动，往往能够收获较好的回报。但是大部分投资者很难接受较长的期限，过度着眼于短期的波动。“基金赚钱，但持有人不赚钱”的情况是国内基金管理行业要共同应对的课题。为此，他们将持续做好投资者的服务与沟通工作、共同推进投资者教育。

施罗德投资表示，在拓展中国业务的过程中，考验最多的是其对于市场的洞察能力，以及对海外平台和本土资源的整合能力。

沈良指出，比较大的难点可能在于中国市场工具及投资者相对与海外有些差异。不过沈良也表示，安联投资在全球投资和风险管理能力加上本土经验，投资难点可以被转化成优势。


瑞银资管则强调“将瑞银成熟的投资理念、投资流程、以及全球投研团队的投研能力和平台支持运用到了本地策略中。我们的本土策略从来不是海外策略的简单复制，而是需要基于中国市场的特点，通过对中国的私募对冲基金的深入的研究和洞察，进行战略和战术策略的配置和动态管理。”