High inflation and elevated borrowing costs are dampening the attractiveness of leveraged private-market investments, but institutional investors across Asia-Pacific are still determined to increase their allocations in private assets, State Street says.

Episode Six, or E6, a global provider of payment processing and digital ledger infrastructure for banks and financial institutions, plans to expand its footprint in Hong Kong this year.

Geopolitics is the biggest uncertainty and foreign interest in Chinese assets will depend on the direction of Beijing’s next set of policies, according to executives at the Harvard College China Forum.

L’Occitane’s billionaire owner Reinold Geiger and Blackstone are nearing a deal to take the US$5.6 billion skincare company private, people familiar said. The stock is halted in Hong Kong pending an announcement.

LGT Group, the world’s largest royal family-owned private banking and asset management group, sees private equity continuing to be attractive to high-net-worth clients, especially in China.

China’s finance sector was once freewheeling, but new regulations and mandates from officials suggest banks’ new role looks beyond simple profit-seeking.

Hong Kong’s ambitions as a wealth management and family office hub for Asia, offers significant private banking opportunities, top executives at Citigroup say.

HSBC plans to promote its family office and digital banking services to attract the growing horde of ultra-high-net-worth clients in Asia to its private banking unit.

The ratio of ultra-rich women stood at 11 per cent of the global total last year, compared with 6.5 per cent in 2010, as changing attitudes towards women doing business has led to a large number of self-made female multimillionaires, according to a survey by Julius Baer.

Private equity firm CVC Capital Partners has closed its largest Asia fund to date, shrugging off a challenging macroeconomic environment that has put a dent in fundraising and led many global fund managers to cut their exposure to the region.

Gone are the days when the property and stock markets yielded guaranteed gains in China, leading to middle-class investors becoming more risk-averse with their hard-earned savings and familial wealth.

Asia’s small and medium sized-enterprises and sectors like technology and education have a widening funding gap, and private credit players are seeing lending opportunities here.

The change will put the city’s protection level in line with the UK and Germany and higher than mainland China and Singapore, but still lower than the United States.

Investors cannot ignore China, but they should be selective about their allocations this year, according to Alex Wolf, managing director and head of investment strategy for Asia at JPMorgan Private Bank.

Hong Kong’s business community is set to turbocharge plans to capitalise on the city’s initiatives to be one of the world’s top wealth centres and talent hubs, while eyeing growth in the wider bay area too, Post survey finds.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore said that Credit Suisse bankers provided clients with inaccurate or incomplete post-trade disclosures, resulting in customers being charged above agreed rates.

Standard Chartered is expanding its role as an international service provider in mainland China, tapping its wealthy clients’ rising appetite for assets around the globe.

Union Bancaire Privee (UBP) has experienced substantial growth in the area over the last five years despite the pandemic, according to its top boss.

Some of the richest families in the city and the wider region attended a ceremony to launch the Hong Kong Academy for Wealth Legacy (HKAWL) in Tsim Sha Tsui.

‘Hong Kong is probably going to be one of the biggest wealth centres in the world, and Singapore is catching up very quickly,’ says Harshika Patel.

China’s small business owners have welcomed the rise of financial platforms more suited to their needs, but those platforms’ attendant risk has made them something of a liability for a risk-averse government. Will they be able to survive an inevitable round of intense regulatory scrutiny?

From the client-facing hedge fund guys with their expensive suits and designer shoes to tech bros in polo shirts and sneakers, here’s how to identify Hong Kong’s finance bros by their outfits.

Hong Kong’s financial markets can look forward to a boost from a soon-to-launch investment migration scheme that will bring ‘substantial’ new capital inflows to the city, Paul Chan said on Friday.

A growing number of wealthy families from the Middle East, Europe and Asia are considering using Hong Kong to invest their riches after the government and wealth managers have increased their promotional efforts this year, according to industry players.

Government efforts to attract billionaires to set up family offices in Hong Kong have already caught the attention of wealthy individuals from mainland China, Asia, the Middle East and further afield, a financial forum organised by the Post heard.

The settlements conclude the final pieces of litigation in a saga involving women who said Epstein sexually abused them, and which embroiled some of the world’s most powerful figures in finance and business.

Hong Kong’s newly launched tax incentives and resumption of investment migration schemes are set to boost the city’s family office hub ambitions, says head of Swiss private lender Union Bancaire Privee in Hong Kong.

Clients from not only China but also Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe are showing sustained interest, says Ida Liu, global head of Citi Private Bank.