外國基金公司尋求與中國互聯網公司合作

International fund managers are examining potential partnership agreements with Chinese internet groups such as Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu in an attempt to win business from investors in the world’s largest economy.

國際基金公司正考慮與阿里巴巴(Alibaba)、騰訊(Tencent)和百度(Baidu)等中國互聯網集團簽署合作協議，目的是贏得全球最二大經濟體的投資者的業務。

Fund groups are keen to develop partnerships with these companies after witnessing the rapid expansion of the online money market fund industry in the past two years.

在見證過去兩年中國在線貨幣市場基金的快速擴張之後，基金公司迫切希望與中國互聯網集團發展合作關係。

Chris Powers, an analyst at Z-Ben Advisors, the Shanghai-based consultancy, said: “We have had several clients ask us about [teaming up with Chinese internet groups]. There is a lot of interest from the foreign manager side.”

上海哲奔諮詢(Z-Ben Advisors)的分析師克里斯•鮑爾斯(Chris Powers)表示：“我們有多家客戶詢問（與中國互聯網集團合作的可能性）。外國基金公司對此也有濃厚興趣。”

Chinese money market funds’ assets increased sixfold to Rmb2.2tn ($350bn) in the 18 months to the end 2014, according to Fitch, the rating agency. It said the big increase was “mainly driven by retail demand for ecommerce [money market funds]”.

評級機構惠譽(Fitch)的數據顯示，在截止2014年底的18個月裏，中國貨幣市場基金的資產增長6倍，至2.2萬億元人民幣（合3500億美元）。惠譽表示，資產大幅增加“主要是電子商務平臺（貨幣市場基金）的散戶需求所致”。

These funds have been sold predominantly by large internet groups with vast customer bases — the Chinese equivalents of developed market companies such as Amazon, Ebay and PayPal.

這些基金主要由客戶基礎龐大的大型互聯網集團銷售；它們就像是中國的亞馬遜(Amazon)、Ebay和PayPal。

A spokesperson for Legal & General Investment Management, the £499bn asset manager, said the company “has not spoken with Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba, but is aware of this market trend”.

旗下管理着4990億英鎊資產的英國法通投資管理公司(Legal & General Investment Management，簡稱LGIM)的一位發言人表示，現在該公司“還沒有與百度、騰訊和阿里巴巴商談，但瞭解這一市場趨勢”。

She added: “Thus far, money market funds are distributed via some of these digital distribution channels with much success, and [we] can reasonably expect the product range will broaden.”

她補充稱：“迄今爲止，通過一些數字渠道經銷的貨幣市場基金取得了巨大成功，（我們）可以合理地預計，產品範圍將會擴大。”

Yu’E Bao , Alibaba’s money fund, which is distributed to users of Alipay, the group’s online payment platform, has been the most successful such product to date. Its assets have risen from zero to Rmb578bn in less than two years.

阿里巴巴旗下貨幣基金餘額寶迄今是此類產品中最爲成功的。餘額寶面向阿里巴巴旗下在線支付平臺支付寶(AliPay)的用戶，資產在不到兩年裏從零增長至5780億元人民幣。

David Stevenson, head of business development at Baring Asset Management, said partnerships between international fund houses and Chinese technology companies could be “massive” in years to come.

霸菱資產管理公司(Baring Asset Management)的業務發展主管戴維•史蒂文森(David Stevenson)表示，國際基金公司與中國科技公司可能在今後幾年展開“大規模”合作。

He said: “Why would an asset manager not want access to a distribution capability with that depth and breadth? That level of distribution reach cannot be achieved through any bank or sales force, regardless of size.”

他說：“一家資產管理公司爲何不想進入有着如此深度和廣度的經銷渠道？那種水平的經銷接觸面是任何銀行或者銷售隊伍（無論規模大小）都不可能達到的。”

Mr Stevenson said any asset manager would be looking “quite seriously” at Chinese internet companies as a potential distribution or marketing platform.

史蒂文森表示，任何資產管理公司都將會“非常認真地”將中國互聯網公司視爲潛在的經銷或者營銷平臺。

Experts agree, however, that foreign fund houses will need to overcome significant challenges before successfully tapping into such companies’ customer networks.

然而，專家們一致認爲，在成功進入此類公司的客戶網絡之前，外國基金公司將需要克服巨大挑戰。

Mr Powers said: “Legally speaking, only Alibaba’s Taobao [its online retail marketplace] would be able to sell funds as it is the only one who has a fund payment license. There is also a lot of uncertainty [over] whether foreign products will be allowed to be sold online. And in terms of online distribution success, almost all of this has been for money market funds, so I do not imagine that the foreign products distributed on the mainland would find much success.”

鮑爾斯表示：“從法律的角度來說，只有阿里巴巴旗下的（在線零售市場）淘寶(Taobao)獲得了基金支付牌照，因此只有該平臺才能夠銷售基金。外國基金產品能否獲准在線銷售也存在巨大的不確定性。就在線經銷取得的成功而言，相關產品幾乎都是貨幣市場基金，因此我不認爲在中國大陸經銷的境外基金產品會取得很大成功。”

Charlotte Quiniou, an analyst at Fitch, added: “Developing the relationships and technology to distribute funds through distributing platforms in China is a key challenge for international asset managers.”

惠譽分析師夏洛特•基尼烏(Charlotte Quiniou)補充稱：“國際資產管理公司面臨的關鍵挑戰是，發展關係和技術，以便通過中國的經銷平臺銷售基金。”