Noah Profits From China’s Wealthy 诺亚财富将与中国富人阶层金融服务市场一道成长
After years of following the same tired old global banking names into and more recently out of China, it’s nice to suddenly see some refreshing new entries to this dynamic but also challenging financial services market. First there was an interesting tie-up last month that saw American Express (NYSE: AXP) investing in a Chinese mobile e-payments company called Lianlian (previous post), and now a US-listed wealth management specialist named Noah Holdings (NYSE: NOAH) says it has become one of the first companies in its category approved to distribute mutual funds to its Chinese clients under a new program by the China Securities Regulatory Commission, China’s securities regulator. Investors certainly liked the news, bidding up shares in Noah by 30 percent in Wednesday trade, as they welcomed the development as evidence that Noah is well positioned to become an important player in catering to China’s growing number of wealthy individuals, especially in its home base of Shanghai. Companies like Noah aren’t really in the same league as American Express, and with a market cap of just $450 million it is a tiny fraction of the size of big names like Citigroup (NYSE: C) and RBS (London: RBS), which once were quite bullish on China but more recently have been retreating from the market to focus on fixing their much bigger problems at home. But the growth of such smaller companies like Noah and Lianlian represents a potential interesting opportunity for investors, and a trend for the future that could see smaller firms with foreign connections and expertise moving in to fill a vacuum left by the departure of the big foreign banks. These new smaller firms are already following in the footsteps of other niche oriented global players like eBay’s (Nasdaq: EBAY) Paypal, which are also finding good business opportunities as China opens developing markets like e-payments. I honestly don’t know enough about Noah to comment beyond the fact that this latest development looks like a good one for the company, which is well positioned to profit from the growth in China’s wealth management market. Look for more such companies to emerge in the next few years, taking advantage of a maturing financial services market where many customers will be looking for more niche-player specialists as alternatives to the big-name banks and brokerages.
Bottom line: Wealth management specialist Noah Holdings represents a new generation of niche-oriented financial services firms that should see rapid growth over the next few years.
Related postings 相关文章:
◙ AmEx Chases E-Payments With Lianlian Link 美国运通联手中国连连集团
◙ Banks to Lend More, But to Whom? 银行获准增加放贷 但流向选择有限
◙ Beijing’s Latest Mixed Signal Bodes Poorly for Banks 中央政府最新政策预示对银行不利
