UBS Global Asset Management says eyeing India entry
HONG KONG (Reuters) - UBS Global Asset Management is still looking for a passage to India, with an entry into Asia's third-largest economy looking more attractive now than it did a year ago, a senior executive at the firm said.
Christof Kutscher, head of Asia-Pacific at the firm, told Reuters that expanding its business into India could not be ruled out by the end of this year, though market volatility was making things difficult to predict.
Kutscher told Reuters in June he was interested in leading the fund management arm of Swiss bank UBS AG (UBSN.VX) into India through a start-up or joint venture, though an acquisition at the time was too pricey.
India's benchmark BSE index .BSESN plunged 61 percent last year, underperforming the 53 percent decline in the MSCI Asia-Pacific ex-Japan stocks index.
"I don't know what the optimal timing will be to go in but it is more attractive to go in now than it was 12 months ago," Kutscher said in an interview on Friday.
UBS Global Asset Management, which took home Lipper Inc's overall award for 3-year performance among Hong Kong-registered funds on Monday, oversaw $539 billion as of end-December 2008, of which 12 percent was sourced in Asia-Pacific.
It has offices in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Kutscher said India was the only other place in the region he would like to be in.
Fund tracker Lipper, a unit of Thomson Reuters TRIL.L, handed UBS Global Asset Management its award for consistent performance across equities, bonds and mixed funds among Hong Kong-registered offerings.
(Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
