Invast Global, the Sydney-headquartered specialist prime broker, has opened a Hong Kong office to tap into its emerging manager scene.

The broker, which specialises in providing prime services to small/mid-sized hedge funds, asset managers, proprietary trading firms, other brokerages and banks, has deployed a team of six people to Hong Kong. The office will be led by Marcus Fung, a senior executive with Invast since 2013.

“Over the past six years, we’ve seen a growing vacuum in the market as traditional investment banks curb their business lines in response to increasingly restrictive global regulatory reforms – and that suits us,” said Fung, CEO Invast Global (Hong Kong).

“We believe demand for alternatives to traditional global investment bank offerings will continue to accelerate over the coming decades as scheduled regulatory reforms take effect and outdated, legacy technology systems continue to constrain the ability of the banks to evolve and compete. As a result, Invast Global is perfectly positioned to provide the most value to emerging and medium-sized hedge funds in Hong Kong,” added Fung.

The broker said launching in 2019 is an opportune time, despite the past 12 months being some of the most challenging for Asia’s hedge fund industry.

“We are very firmly of the view that 2019 and beyond is going to bring back the huge returns and huge returns volatility that was associated with the birth of the hedge fund industry,” he said.

“It’s no secret that 2018 will probably go down as the annus horribilis of the hedge fund industry.”

He added: “Beneath the dramatic headlines however, the biggest trend we’ve noticed was actually the bifurcation of manager performance – many smaller, more nimble emerging managers (as well as some larger ones) who are running genuinely unique strategies that aren’t correlated to the equity market have completely knocked it out of the park.”

Invast Global is a subsidiary of JASDAQ-listed Japanese company – Invast Securities Co. which has a 60-year history as a forex and securities brokerage.

Boutique prime broker Invast Global opens in HK on AsiaHedge.