The direct retail partnership is a first for the US asset management firm.

Asset management house T Rowe Price and Standard Chartered in Singapore have inked a six-month exclusive partnership to offer the US firm’s equity investment strategies to the bank’s retail customers.

This is the first time T Rowe Price has formed a direct retail partnership in the Asian city-state, it said in a statement yesterday. 

Under the partnership, three investment strategies curated by UK-listed Standard Chartered will be launched to meet the investment needs of local investors in a low-growth, rising inflation and high-volatility market environment.

Investors will be able to use T Rowe Price’s fundamental research platform and active bottom-up stock picking expertise to gain exposure to high-quality growth companies with strong long-term prospects through three investment strategies:

-- T Rowe Price China Evolution Equity Strategy, which looks beyond China’s well-owned mega-cap stocks to identify under-discovered opportunities and the rising stars that the firm believes will benefit from China’s economic growth and disruptive innovation; 

-- T Rowe Price Global Focused Growth Strategy, which is one of the firm’s most unconstrained equity strategies that invests in the powerful secular trends shaping the world’s future; and 

-- T Rowe Price US Large Cap Growth Equity Strategy, which offers a diversified portfolio of disruptive and innovative US companies with double-digit “real” earnings per share growth.

“This also signifies the next stage of our business growth after receiving a Singapore retail distribution licence in December 2021, which allows us to extend our partnerships beyond private banks,” Elsie Chan, head of distribution for Asia ex-Japan at T Rowe Price, said.

The partnership is a coup for Standard Chartered, giving the firm a chance to partner with a US business managing $1.55 trillion of client assets. T Rowe Price, which is based in Baltimore, set up its first Asia presence in 1987. As of 14 April, the firm had a total of 19 funds which are recognised by the Monetary Authority of Singapore for sale to local retail investors.