MILLENNIUM Management spinoff Modular Asset Management plans to expand to Hong Kong, the latest hedge fund arrival as the city tries to defend its status as a global financial hub.
Singapore-based Modular, which manages US$1.5 billion and focuses on macro bets, has brought in former Barclays trader Alex Hu Xiuyi as a portfolio manager. Hu is its first hire for Hong Kong, where the firm is looking to open an office in the second quarter, said a source with knowledge of the matter.
The Hong Kong office will allow the firm to stay closer to the China market and attract investment staff who wish to stay in the city, said the source, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. Chief operating officer Matthew Cannon declined to comment.
The expansion comes as Hong Kong gets squeezed by geopolitical spats and China’s economic slowdown. Growing tensions between the US and China are polarising the global economy with ramifications for markets that macro hedge funds dabble in: equities, fixed income, currencies and commodities.
A few days into the new year, the outgoing Biden administration added Tencent Holdings, the world’s largest gaming publisher, and Contemporary Amperex Technology, a key battery supplier to Tesla, to its list of companies allegedly working with China’s military.
The Chinese central bank has ramped up bill auctions in Hong Kong to the largest on record to support the yuan on the cusp of the second presidency of Donald Trump. On the campaign trail, Trump described “tariff” as his favourite word in the dictionary and threatened to slap up to 60 per cent import duties on Chinese goods.
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Facing rivalries from Singapore to Tokyo and Middle Eastern cities, Hong Kong officials have been trying to burnish the city’s appeal to financial firms after a bruising talent drain during the years of the Covid pandemic, China’s crackdown on various industries and mounting geopolitical tensions.
Some positive signs have emerged. In the four months to October, the number of financial professionals newly licensed by the city’s securities watchdog saw a net increase of about 830, driving the total licensees to a record 42,000, according to a Bloomberg News analysis based on regulatory data.
Other recent international hedge fund arrivals in Hong Kong include New York-based multistrategy firm Jain Global and Arrowpoint Investment Partners, led by Singapore-based Jonathan Xiong.
In addition to Barclays, Hu also traded for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup earlier in his career.
Chief investment officer Jimmy Lim and Cannon founded Modular in 2020 after leaving Millennium. Lim previously also managed money at BlueCrest Capital Management. Modular’s assets expanded 20 per cent in the past year to US$1.5 billion, after its hedge fund gained 8 per cent in 2024 and new and existing investors added more cash.
Hu is one of four recent portfolio manager recruits as Modular boosted its roster of investment staff, also including traders and researchers, to 21 from 16 a year earlier. The other three are:
Asia interest rates specialist Dong Chan Lee, who joined from BlackRock, having also managed money for Prudential Asset Management’s South Korea business Shanci Zhang, who started her career at Lehman Brothers Holdings and went on to trade for Pharo Management, Graticule Asset Management Asia and most recently Southern Ridges Capital Rajat Narang, who is relocating from India, where he traded rates at ICICI Securities Primary Dealership.
Larger global firms including Millennium and Michael Platt’s BlueCrest have also been boosting macro trading headcount in the region. Jai Rajpal’s Crescent Asset Management Asia and Ayan Sen’s Navik Capital (Singapore), once backed by Millennium, were folded into Izzy Englander’s US$72 billion hedge fund giant in the past year or so.
Modular alumnus David Nash went on to trade for Brevan Howard Asset Management, while Cindy Lau now heads fixed income at Avanda Investment Management. BLOOMBERG
