The latest in funds and investments across Asia-Pacific.

OPIM
OP Investment Management, a Hong Kong-based hedge fund platform, is partnering with Qijian Global Investment Management to launch Heqi Global Absolute Return Fund SP, which is Cayman-domiciled and for professional investors only.

Managed by Tianyang Li, the fund focuses on the China A-Shares market, harnessing fundamental and market data to apply statistical arbitrage models for medium to high frequency long positions. Meanwhile, it seeks to minimize systematic risks by hedging swaps and index futures. Industry unrestricted, the strategy's holding period for equities and futures can range from a few seconds to as long as a few weeks, OPIM said.

Li has more than six years of quant trading and investment experience. Before launching the fund, he was partner and head of trading at Shanghai Qijian Asset Management.

OPIM was set up in 2004 and is licensed with the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission. The Oriental Patron Financial Group was founded in 1993.

MSCI
Market index provider MSCI, whose indices guide investors, now rates 32,000 funds according to their risks around environmental, social and governance performance – reflecting the growing noise around ESG investing.

The ratings will apply to funds, including exchange-traded funds, in the equity and fixed income universe, MSCI, aka Morgan Stanley Capital International, said yesterday. 

Each fund or ETF scores a rating on a scale from AAA (leader) to CCC (laggard).  The rating is based first on the weighted average score of the holdings of the fund or ETF. MSCI then assesses the ESG momentum to gain insight into the fund’s ESG track record. This is designed to indicate a fund’s exposure to holdings with a positive rating trend or worsening trend year-on-year. Finally, MSCI reviews risks to test a fund’s exposure to holdings with worst-of-class ESG fund ratings of B and CCC.

The growth of “passive” investing entities such as ETFs creates challenges for clients who want to tap into environmental, social and governance ideas but without the costs normally associated with actively managed funds. Tools helping investors rank funds are therefore important, MSCI said.