Mutual funds are the talk in Shanghai. The government is expected to clear new regulations permitting open-ended funds by this summer, and fund houses are scrambling to introduce products to a market hungry for new investment vehicles. A Chinese fund manager, tipped by rivals to be ahead of the pack, says speculation that his firm could launch a fund as early as April is overdone. He says the third quarter is more likely.
We have no experience as a transfer agent, he says. We still need to set up a service centre, to hire 15-20 people to work the phones, to train them, to buy the equipment. For now, his firm intends to do...