By Selena Li and Samuel Shen
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Fidelity International is in talks to hire the general manager of a joint venture of Warburg Pincus in China to lead its new fund management unit in the world’s second-largest economy, three sources with knowledge of the matter said.
Huang Xiaoyi, currently the general manager of Hwabao WP Fund Management in China, is in late-stage talks with Fidelity about the role, said the sources.
Huang, who has served as Hwabao WP’s general manager for more than eight years, plans to resign by the end of this month if the talks go smoothly, one source said, adding the timeline for her new role is subject to regulatory approval.
Fidelity declined to comment. Huang did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hwabao WP said in a statement Huang “still serves as the company’s general manager as normal”, and the company will make an announcement if there is any change.
Hwabao WP, China’s 23rd largest retail fund manager, according to data provider Eastmoney, is 49% owned by Warburg Pincus Asset Management, which acquired the stake from Lyxor Asset Management in 2017.
The rest of Hwabao WP is owned by Hwabao Trust, a financial affiliate of China’s state-owned steel conglomerate Baowu, business registration records show.
Global asset managers since 2020 have rushed to build their 100% owned fund units in China’s 25.9 trillion yuan ($4.1 trillion) fund market after a foreign ownership cap was removed.
Global fund managers including Neuberger Berman, Schroders, VanEck and AllianceBernstein have applied for fund management licences in China.
BlackRock became the first to start wholly-owned operations in China in June 2021.
Huang would replace Fidelity’s former China president Daisy Ho, who left in August last year, the same month as the fund manager got preliminary regulatory approval to establish the fund unit.
Ho in November joined HSBC Global Asset Management as its chief executive for Asia Pacific and Hong Kong.
The “CEO musical chairs” points to an increasingly cutthroat hiring market for global asset managers in China, one of the sources said, due to a small pool of industry leaders with proven track records and good command over English.
($1 = 6.3168 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Selena Li in Hong Kong and Samuel Shen in Shanghai; editing by Sumeet Chatterjee and Jason Neely)
