(China Alert) Good fortune and corporate actions

-Corporate actions at large FMCs are back in focus after a long lull

-Fortune SG’s marks a trend that is likely to buck the exits of old

-A wider variety of global and domestic firms are showing an interest in China asset management

Update: An eventful summer for China asset management has been capped by reports that Warburg Pincus is in talks to acquire Société Générale’s stake in onshore fund manager Fortune SG. This acquisition would be notable if only for the size of the target – Fortune SG is the sixteenth largest public fund manager – or the fact that Warburg would be the first global private equity firm to gain a foothold in this sector. More intriguing is that this is the second action involving a fund manager (also a JV) in this this quarter alone. The environment for corporate actions is now warming up after a three-year lull. In those years, the top-line addressable market has tripled from RMB2.5tr to RMB7.9tr. Z-Ben Advisors believes this is just the beginning of a corporate action spree that should involve a wider variety of both foreign and domestic players.

Société Générale’s decision to exit its onshore asset management operations is not entirely surprising, neither is Warburg’s entry merely opportunistic…

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