Back from Hong Kong and a very successful Fund Forum Asia conference.  It was great to catch up with people and developments in the industry and enjoy that HK buzz. I had a great panel of CEOs and my rather cheeky polling questions went down well with the audience. The last question of the session was "when will Asia overtake Europe in terms of assets" and the results were pretty emphatic with the audience expecting Asian assets (probably around 15% of Europe's AUM today) to overtake Europe in less than 10 years.

So the future is definitely Asian, and if Europe needs to understand why, you only need to look at the fantastic service you get out there.  The exhibition was actually taken down on a nightly basis so that the hotel could get a few weddings in at the same time. Incredible – can't imagine that happening in Europe! Everything is hundred times better. Hotel rooms come with everything you need including umbrellas, irons and ironing boards, and the service is uber-fast and excellent. It's almost as if the staff can read your mind. Sadly, it's the kind of service that hasn't existed in Europe for a very long time.  

Made lots of progress for the new portal we're consulting on, IPA's funds-asia.com. As soon as it launches (next week probably), I'll send out the link. 

Bella

It's been an incredibly busy week. Last week we launched the new Distribution Report in association with Matrix and we've been getting lots of interest from people (thank you). This week we're very pleased to announce the launch of our brand new Platform Report. This will be in the style of the Pridham Report, with lots of data, commentary and insight. We're also starting coverage by business segment, which will allow us to track developments by type of platform eg wrap or institutional business etc. For more information, please send me an email.

While doing all of this, I've been busy preparing and researching for my trip to Asia where I am chairing a CEO panel, and also conducting individual interviews of four CEOs for ICBI's social media portal. This all links in to our work on IPA's web portal, funds-asia.com, which should go live end March (watch out for more details). I'm looking forward in particular to catching up with lots of contacts out there and enjoying that lovely HK buzz! 

In the meantime, it's almost time for tonight's Money Marketing Awards, which should be very interesting. Hopefully I'll catch some of you there.

Bella

Welcome to our very first post and to our brand new website!  It's been four months since we started Fundscape and we're pleased with progress so far.  The second issue of our flagship publication, the Pridham Report, has just been published and solid support from the fund industry has meant that its membership has gone from strength to strength.

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