The globalization story of China's mutual fund industry reached a concentrated wave of achievements during the golden autumn month of October. China Asset Management partnering with Franklin Templeton, Fullgoal Hong Kong teaming up with Indonesia's Sinarmas Asset Management, Southern Asset Management collaborating with Brazil's Pactual Asset Management, and China Asset Management (Hong Kong) joining forces with Qatar's Lesha Bank — a series of Sino-foreign asset management partnerships have been launched one after another, extending their reach to the Middle East, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and other regions. The forms of cooperation have also evolved from simple product cross-listing toward deeper, multi-regional, multi-paradigm, two-way interconnected development models.
In the traditional narrative, these events are often framed under the concept of "mutual fund going overseas," emphasizing the industry's multi-point blossoming across the global landscape and diverse product launch formats. However, China Asset Management General Manager Li Yimei has offered an entirely new interpretive framework.
"From our perspective, China Asset Management and indeed the entire asset management industry are now facing a tremendous demand — that is, to diversify assets and reduce the risks associated with relying on a single market. Internationalization is inevitably the key to solving this problem," Li Yimei said during a media interview session at last week's signing ceremony for the strategic cooperation memorandum between China Asset Management and Franklin Templeton.
When discussing "going overseas," the subject is the asset management institution, approached from the perspective of the institution's business. But when discussing "asset diversification," the subject is the investor, grounded in the client's genuine allocation needs. Institutions are not going overseas merely for the sake of going overseas, nor expanding for the sake of business expansion, but rather responding to client needs as a natural outcome.
Volatility Is Intensifying — How Should I Manage My Portfolio?
"When I meet with global investors, they raise all kinds of questions, but many of them boil down to one core issue: at a time when volatility has increased significantly, how should I manage my investment portfolio?" said Franklin Templeton Co-President and Chief Commercial Officer Daniel Gamba during the interview session that day.
In his view, today's investors are dealing with monetary policies implemented by governments with very high debt levels, an elevated inflation environment, geopolitical realignment, and technology-driven transformation. From an asset class perspective, the traditional categories of equities, bonds, and cash are far from sufficient to meet investors' needs, which are far more complex than ever before. Cross-market, cross-industry comprehensive solutions are increasingly becoming the new trend.
"Asset diversification" is precisely the response to the key question raised by Gamba.
Rewinding to a month ago, China Asset Management (Hong Kong) and Franklin Templeton listed two co-branded ETFs on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange — the ChinaAMC Franklin Hong Kong-U.S. Equity Cash Flow Focus ETF and the ChinaAMC Franklin FTSE Innovative Drugs ETF — marking the first substantive step in their bilateral strategic cooperation. Both products are cross-market offerings under the same investment theme, both targeting the most cutting-edge sectors with long growth runways — most intuitively reflecting the strategic thinking of China Asset Management and Franklin Templeton.
The two ETFs on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange aim to serve domestic investors' need to allocate overseas assets through future inclusion in ETF Connect. Meanwhile, the future development of co-branded ETF products under European UCITS and U.S. ETF structures mentioned in the memorandum of understanding points to serving overseas investors' need to allocate to Chinese assets.
From a market investment research perspective, global markets are entering a phase of ever-accelerating change rates and "super-connectivity" with one another: a slight doubt about AI giants' earnings in the North American market is immediately reflected in Asian morning trading, while minor changes in orders from major Asian semiconductor companies can instantly stir waves in North American stock markets. The daily work of researchers and fund managers on both sides of the Pacific is no longer just about monitoring domestic companies' fundamentals and capital flows, but also requires covering upstream and downstream enterprises in the same industry chain abroad and rapidly conducting cross-validation — from this perspective, "going overseas" has long been internalized as a daily routine for Chinese mutual fund institutions, rather than a tentative search for a second growth curve.
This is precisely where the greater significance of cooperation between China Asset Management and global giants like Franklin Templeton lies: beyond joint product development, the cooperation also includes market insight sharing and investment expertise exchange. Li Yimei revealed during the interview that China Asset Management's senior fund managers in the technology sector had already traveled to Franklin Templeton for in-depth exchanges with its international technology fund team.
"We were delighted to discover that our understanding of many aspects differs. I think this kind of collision is very precious and very rare. This difference is exactly where the meaning of our cooperation lies," Li Yimei said.
Deepening Understanding of Investor Needs Across Different Regions
In the responses of both Li Yimei and Gamba, "client needs" was another high-frequency phrase. In Li Yimei's view, the globalization of China's mutual fund industry involves not only deepening understanding of different markets and asset classes, but also an important dimension of deepening understanding of investor needs across different regions.
"Different international investors have different starting points and needs when it comes to investing in China. As China experts, we should certainly take the lead in meeting these international investors' diverse needs for investing in China," Li Yimei stated.
"For example, can the diverse needs of different types and regions of capital investing in China really all be solved by a single MSCI China or CSI 300 index?"
Franklin Templeton noted that even within the ETF space alone, investor needs vary greatly across regions: in the Americas, low-volatility high-yield ETFs are a very popular theme; in Europe, Franklin Templeton has expanded its thematic ETF range based on investor demand, encompassing technology, fundamentals, and outcome-oriented solutions. In Asia, ETFs are increasingly being used as tools for building strategic portfolios, with cross-market products gaining momentum.
These needs cannot be uncovered by domestic mutual fund institutions operating solely within China or through one or two overseas research trips. They require extensive real interactions with overseas clients — and cooperation with Franklin Templeton will undoubtedly greatly accelerate the speed of obtaining such insights.
When asked whether this cooperation with Franklin Templeton plays the role of a "puzzle piece" or a "pathway" in China Asset Management's global multi-asset all-capability platform, Li Yimei said candidly, "This cooperation is both a pathway and a puzzle piece. More than anything, it opens up a larger stage and more possibilities for cooperation."
China Asset Management aims to build an open, diversified, and complementary global partner ecosystem, choosing differentiated entry approaches based on different market endowments: in North America, a China technology-themed ETF (CNQQ) launched on Nasdaq in cooperation with Rayliant; in Latin America, a local ETF investing in ChinaAMC ChiNext ETF launched with a Brazilian partner, followed by the ChinaAMC Brazil ETF listing on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, forming a two-way China-Brazil product layout; in Southeast Asia, an A500 ETF feeder fund issued in cooperation with local institutions, with CSI 300 ETF and STAR 50 ETF listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand via depositary receipts.
Entering different regional markets and launching products is only the first step. For globalization to truly achieve steady and long-term progress, it is also necessary to strengthen the ability to learn from outstanding peers in providing various asset classes to clients in different regions. As Li Yimei put it: "We have always believed that globalization goes far beyond expanding our business footprint overseas. It is about bringing our own professionalism and expertise to the global stage."
The ultimate goal is to achieve global financing, global research, global investment, and global sales. And the starting point and endpoint of this vision remains serving clients' asset diversification needs.
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