Fund managers beware the next new thing

Fund managers in Asia will see increasing competition from index vehicles, say proponents of indices and index investing. Garrett Bouton, chief executive for the global individual investor business at Barclays Global Investors Services (BGI) in San Francisco, believes a number of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) will be introduced to Asia over the next year following the phenomenal success of the Hong Kong Tracker Fund. Mark Shipman, a lawyer at Clifford Chance, which worked on the Tracker deal, says, “When I hear about ETFs, I’m glad I’m not in the mutual fund business.”