China's wealthy want to pursue business opportunities abroad, rather than just investment returns, according to asset managers and consultants.
BEIJING — China's wealthy are increasingly looking for ways to move capital outside the mainland to pursue business opportunities, rather than just chasing investment returns, according to asset managers and consultants.This year, there's been a"very significant" trend of requests from Chinese family offices that want to acquire smaller businesses in Japan, said Ryota Kadogaki, co-founder and global CEO of Monolith, a Japan-based consulting firm for family offices.
"Most of our clients are China-rooted entrepreneurs who are looking to further globalize," Grant Pan, CFO of China-based wealth management firm Noah Holdings, told CNBC."Obviously they are at least keeping their eyes open for opportunities for their businesses all over the world. Obviously there's slowdown pressure in terms of domestic markets for many industries.""Many of our clients appear to be busier than before," he said.
Kadogaki noted that buying foreign companies is a way for Chinese investors to move assets abroad. He also shared examples of how a fund investing in a tech company in China might now look to acquire a retail store in Japan to expand potential revenue. Right now, Canopy says its system supports English, simplified and traditional Chinese and German. The company claims it works with more than 300 custodians with"Typically we deal with the professionals that help manage the money for the wealth owners," said Mu Chen, executive director at Canopy."What we are hearing from them is that the"In 2022, 2023, maybe it was more a reactionary behavior to think about going overseas," he said.
Noah Holdings' Pan pointed out that many of the company's affluent clients have set up offices and alternative residences in Hong Kong, Singapore or Japan as a way to explore global business opportunities while keeping proximity to China operations.