On December 20th, Amundi, European’s largest asset management company, and BOC Wealth Management, the subsidiary of Bank of China, have received the approval from China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (“CBIRC”) to establish the first asset management joint-venture (“Asset Management JV”).
In order to further promote the opening up of the financial sector, the Office of Financial Stability Development Commission of the State Council promulgated the Relevant Measures on Further Expanding the Opening up of the Financial Sector (“Measures”) in this July, in which “allowing overseas asset management institutions and subsidiaries of Chinese-funded banks or insurance companies to set up joint venture asset management companies controlled by foreign investors” became one of the highlights of the Measures for opening up.
The Asset Management JV is the first asset management company which has obtained the CBIRC approval to launch its establishment with a foreign shareholder holding a majority stake since the promulgation of the Measures.
As the legal counsel of Amundi, King & Wood Mallesons (“KWM”) has deeply engaged in every aspect of the preparation work. The Asset Management JV not only represented KWM’s another success in the establishment of wealth management subsidiaries after it assisted Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Everbright Bank and China Merchants Bank to establish their wealth management subsidiaries, but also represented KWM’s pioneer in assisting foreign asset management companies to invest into China market and to establish foreign-investor controlled asset management joint-venture.
WM Partners Su Zheng and Liu Linlin led the project, core team members consisted of Chen Hanxu, Li Xuanyi and Liu Xinrui.