SINGAPORE/HONG KONG (Reuters) – Templeton emerging markets funds investing beyond Asia have failed to match the strong returns of its flagship Asian product, putting pressure on star manager Mark Mobius to turn the tide or risk eroding his reputation among investors in markets such as Russia and Brazil.

Mobius, widely recognized as an emerging markets guru, enjoys strong success in Asia, where his $15.5 billion (10 billion pounds) Templeton Asian Growth Fund has given investors an over-five-fold return in the past decade.

His forays outside the region, however, have been less impressive, partly due to the fact that bets have been spread more.

The geographically diverse Templeton Emerging Markets Fund ranked just 103 out of 236 funds over 10 years in total returns, according to Lipper, a Thomson Reuters service.

And Mobius’ $3.1 billion BRIC fund, which has a shorter history, lies in the bottom quartile of funds that invest in Brazil, Russia, India and China for the three-year period to November 2010.

“The Asian growth fund has done very well and that is very clear from the data. But for the broader emerging markets funds, it’s another story,” said William Cai, deputy investment head at Singapore-based GYC Financial Advisory.

Investors have followed the money. The Templeton Asian Growth Fund, the top Asia ex-Japan equities fund over 10 years according to Lipper, has seen assets nearly double from around $8 billion at the end of last year.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Nigeria, Vietnam and Kazakhstan are “frontier” markets Franklin Templeton expects to place its biggest bets on in 2011 as it seeks opportunities in countries shunned by most money managers, its emerging markets head Mark Mobius said on Thursday.

Investors have shown increasing interest in so-called frontier markets over the past year, hoping their early entry will translate into bumper returns if these countries become as popular as China, India and Brazil.

Templeton, who manages a small Frontier Markets equity fund as well as private equity vehicles that invest in emerging markets, ranks Nigeria as its No. 1 pick among frontier economies, Mobius told Reuters in an interview.

“The perception of many people is that Nigeria is one place that they don’t want to go. We found it different… There’s lots of reform taking place in Nigeria, particularly and surprisingly in the banking sector,” he said.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country with over 150 million people, suffered a near-collapse in its banking system last year, forcing the government to rescue and recapitalise nine lenders.

“Regulation of the banks has improved dramatically,” he said, adding Templeton’s top holdings in Nigeria, are Zenith Bank (ZENITHB.LG: Quote, Profile, Research) and United Bank for Africa (UBA.LG: Quote, Profile, Research).

Templeton also owns several food companies to tap the country’s increasing wealth and large number of consumers, he said.

HONG KONG/SINGAPORE, Dec 16 (Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc proprietary trading desk head Morgan Sze is setting up a 20-30 member team to start a Hong Kong-based hedge fund that’s expected to raise more than $1 billion, people familiar with the matter said.

The multi-strategy fund, which would be one of the biggest in Asia, is expected to take office space in Hong Kong’s ICBC Tower and would start operating in the first quarter of 2011, two people familiar with the matter said.

The team would comprise about 12 analysts and the entire trading desk would come from Goldman, three sources said.

“Sze needs at least $1 billion just to justify the size of operation,” a source familiar with the plan said.

Goldman Sachs declined to comment.

The Financial Times reported earlier on Thursday that Sze, one of Goldman’s top paid employees, had started raising money for a new hedge fund to be named Azentus Capital.

The fund may start trading with $1 billion to $1.5 billion and employ a number of strategies, including equity long-short, risk arbitrage and special situation investing, the newspaper said, citing unnamed sources.

TOKYO/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Business sentiment at Asia’s leading companies rebounded in the fourth quarter as corporations shrugged off concern that the debt crisis unfolding on Europe’s fringes will hobble global growth.

The Reuters Asia Corporate Sentiment Index rose to 77 in the quarter from 69 in the third quarter, the second highest reading since Reuters began collecting data in June 2009.

“There’s sloshes of liquidity going around. People feel rich, companies see people are still spending and that overrides some of the headwinds such as the problems in Europe,” said Song Seng Wun, a Singapore-based regional economist at CIMB, Malaysia’s second largest bank.

Tobias Trotter, managing director of topfinancialjobs.com.sg, which focuses on financial sector recruiting in Asia, said firms were still looking to hire aggressively despite this being the year-end when activity slows.

“There’s a little bit of market uncertainty but I think people are making a long-term bet that Asia is looking strong,” he said. The index remained well above the 50 mark that separates positive from negative outlooks, with sentiment especially strong in the resources, financial and property industries that have benefited from robust growth within Asia and strong inflows of cash into the region.

Sentiment in the technology sector, more exposed to the global economic cycle, however remained the most cautious.

Japanese corporates were the most wary about the outlook for their business, while fast-growing China and India remained among the most upbeat.

TOKYO/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Business sentiment at Asia’s leading companies rebounded in the fourth quarter as corporations shrugged off concern that the debt crisis unfolding on Europe’s fringes will hobble global growth.

The Reuters Asia Corporate Sentiment Index rose to 77 in the quarter from 69 in the third quarter, the second highest reading since Reuters began collecting data in June 2009.

“There’s sloshes of liquidity going around. People feel rich, companies see people are still spending and that overrides some of the headwinds such as the problems in Europe,” said Song Seng Wun, a Singapore-based regional economist at CIMB, Malaysia’s second largest bank.

The index remained well above the 50 mark that separates positive from negative outlooks, with sentiment especially strong in the resources, financial and property industries that have benefited from robust growth within Asia and strong inflows of cash into the region.

Sentiment in the technology sector, more exposed to the global economic cycle, however remained the most cautious.

Japanese corporates were the most wary about the outlook for their business, while fast-growing China and India remained among the most upbeat.

Sentiment in Australia and Southeast Asia was mostly positive with strong growth within Asia calming fears of a fresh global recession as Europe buttresses its decade-old common currency with emergency loans to Ireland.

TOKYO/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Business sentiment at Asia’s leading companies rebounded in the fourth quarter as corporations shrugged off concern that the debt crisis unfolding on Europe’s fringes will hobble global growth.

The Reuters Asia Corporate Sentiment Index rose to 77 in the quarter from 69 in the third quarter, the second highest reading since Reuters began collecting data in June 2009.

“There’s sloshes of liquidity going around. People feel rich, companies see people are still spending and that overrides some of the headwinds such as the problems in

Europe,” said Song Seng Wun, a Singapore-based regional economist at CIMB, Malaysia’s second largest bank.

The index remained well above the 50 mark that separates positive from negative outlooks, with sentiment especially strong in the resources, financial and property industries that have benefited from robust growth within Asia and strong inflows of cash into the region.

Sentiment in the technology sector, more exposed to the global economic cycle, however remained the most cautious.

Japanese corporates were the most wary about the outlook for their business, while fast-growing China and India remained among the most upbeat.

TOKYO/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Business sentiment at Asia’s leading companies rebounded in the fourth quarter as corporations shrugged off concern that the debt crisis unfolding on Europe’s fringes will hobble global growth.

The Reuters Asia Corporate Sentiment Index rose to 77 in the quarter from 69 in the third quarter, the second highest reading since Reuters began collecting data in June 2009.

“There’s sloshes of liquidity going around. People feel rich, companies see people are still spending and that overrides some of the headwinds such as the problems in

Europe,” said Song Seng Wun, a Singapore-based regional economist at CIMB, Malaysia’s second largest bank.

The index remained well above the 50 mark that separates positive from negative outlooks, with sentiment especially strong in the resources, financial and property industries that have benefited from robust growth within Asia and strong inflows of cash into the region.

Sentiment in the technology sector, more exposed to the global economic cycle, however remained the most cautious.

Japanese corporates were the most wary about the outlook for their business, while fast-growing China and India remained among the most upbeat.

SINGAPORE, Dec 6 (Reuters) – Nikko Asset Management, a unit of Japan’s Sumitomo Trust & Banking , will buy Singapore’s DBS Asset Management in a deal valued at $105 million to expand its reach in Southeast Asia.

The deal reflects consolidation in the fund industry, where size has become increasingly important amid rising costs and falling fees for mutual funds.

“Scalability can be very important for medium to large-size asset management companies because you’ve got to a point when you don’t really need more people to manage more assets,” said Peter Elston, a strategist at Aberdeen Asset Management Asia. “There is continual pressure on fund managers to improve scale.”

Nikko Asset’s assets under management will grow to $150 billion from $120 billion once the acquisitions of the DBS unit and Tyndall are completed, Chairman and CEO Tim McCarthy said at a news conference in Singapore on Monday.

Nikko Asset, which gets more than half its funds from Japanese investors, is keen to transform itself into a pan-Asian asset manager. Last month, the firm announced the purchase of Australia’s Tyndall Investments for A$80 million.

Under the terms of an agreement Nikko Asset will acquire DBS’ unit for S$137 million ($105 million). DBS will in turn use the money to buy a 7.25 percent stake in the enlarged asset manager.

DBS will not inject the unit’s 33 percent stake in Changsheng Fund Management into Nikko Asset, the two firms said, confirming a Reuters report last week. [ID:nL3E6N20S4]

SINGAPORE, Dec 1 (Reuters) – Europe’s economy is on a recovery track and its governments are determined to defend their common currency, the head of the euro zone’s financial safety net will say in a speech on Wednesday.

“You may think and you sometimes read that Europe is in chaos, disintegrating, the euro about to disappear. This is wrong,” Klaus Regling, chief of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), said in an advance copy of comments he is due to deliver later in the day.

“We do have problems in Europe. There is continued uncertainty and tension in sovereign debt markets. But Europe has taken action over recent months to tackle sovereign debt issues in the eurozone and it has shown that it is serious about protecting the euro,” he said.

Copies of the speech he is due to make at the National University of Singapore were distributed in advance to local media. Reuters obtained a copy.

The EFSF’s role is to issue bonds to investors to raise funds for euro zone countries cut off from markets. The bonds would be backed by up to 440 billion euros ($575 billion) worth of guarantees from euro zone governments.

At the weekend, euro zone ministers agreed an 85 billion euro ($110 billion) rescue package for Ireland. However, the deal has failed to calm markets that are also worried about the fiscal health of other countries, such as Portugal.

Regling is said to be seeking support for the plan in Asia, but there was no official word on whether he met Singapore financial authorities.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Hedge funds investing in developing Asia have begun to attract money from investors after a poor first half of 2010 when many were hurt by outflows despite strong interest in emerging markets, industry players said.

Global investors have been pouring money into Asia in search of higher returns since the start of the year, pushing up currencies and fuelling concerns about asset bubbles. But they took out about $1.6 billion from Asia ex-Japan themed hedge funds between January and July, according to data from Eurekahedge.

The trend has since reversed, with Asia ex-Japan focused funds receiving around $250 million net inflows in both August and September, said Eurekahedge, a Singapore-based fund tracker. And preliminary data showed Asia ex-Japan focused funds had inflows of just under $1 billion in October, Eurekahedge analyst Farhan Mumtaz said.

“In the first half of the year, there were still net outflows from Asian funds. But in the past few months, we have started to see some inflows,” said Wout Kalis, Citigroup’s (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) head of alternative investments for the Asia Pacific.

“We are seeing some traction though the inflows are not the same as what you see in the U.S. and Europe,” said Kalis, whose unit provides services to the region’s hedge fund industry.

Large, global hedge fund managers with Asian-themed funds and staff in the region have been more successful in attracting money than Asian managers, he added.

SKEWED NUMBERS