Moscow-based investment bank Renaissance Capital is opening a Hong Kong office to extend the firm's reach in Asia.
Chief executive Stephen Jennings said the centre of global capital for emerging markets was moving east and the bank expected Hong Kong to benefit most from the shift.
'We are also witnessing a major M&A integration between Asia and other emerging markets. For these reasons we are building out an Asian presence with an office in Hong Kong,' Jennings said.
Like Renaissance Capital's offices in London and New York, the Hong Kong branch will distribute securities from Russia, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and other emerging markets to institutional investors. Renaissance Capital Hong Kong chief executive Jeremy Sparrow said there was a natural link between Russia and Asia. 'Russia is the largest commodities producer in Asia. Asia, and China in particular, is becoming the world's largest consumer of commodities. Thus it is natural for these two regions to integrate further, including integration through the financial markets,' Sparrow said.
'There are large pools of Asian capital, both sovereign and private, looking for commodity-driven ideas. Renaissance Capital has a dominant position in these resource-rich geographies and we believe we are ideally positioned to intermediate these flows.'
Sparrow said the bank looked at Hong Kong and Singapore as options in the move. 'One of the key things was getting as close to China as possible. Hong Kong certainly makes that process easier than Singapore,' he said at the company's annual investor conference in Moscow.
He said the company was also influenced by the decision of Russian aluminium company Rusal last year to list in Hong Kong, and because a number of the firm's corporate clients wanted to get closer to China.
