The view from South East Asia – Jim Carrey Edition

As the dust settles on our latest voyage around South East Asia I found a brief moment of calm to reflect once again on the high, lows and bizarre moments of our trip. One moment that I can?t seem to forget is at the hotel bar??in Singapore where the barman insisted on referring to me as Jim Carey, a comparison that to date I have never come across and one that I think you would struggle to beat in a competition of ?people I look the least like?. That said I was happy to go with this and even ended the night taking photographs?with staff and signing napkins, J.Carey.

 

In between ridiculous celebrity comparisons we enjoyed a very productive trip across Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore in which we once again noted a number of recurring themes. One of these themes is the ever increasing endeavour of financial advisers and investment professionals in the region to actively seek value adding investments and add these to their client offering. An area that appears to be increasingly popular in the region is that of short term finance and lending opportunities, with the trade finance sector an area in particular that we will be paying close attention to over the coming months.

 

Leading on from the above point our UK focused property Funds continue to generate increasing interest from the region as a genuine lowly correlated alternative to traditional markets. ?With a number of new agreements for the region already in place this year, we anticipate significant growth as clients continue to see the benefits of these lowly correlated, steady returns. With an increasing demand for discretionary investment services also apparent our partnership with an international discretionary fund manager continues to present a number of exciting opportunities that I look forward to seeing develop over the coming months,(shameless plugs now over!).

 

And finally, spending Valentine?s Day away from home?didn’t earn me many brownie points however it did give me the opportunity to see this guy on a Sunday afternoon in Bangkok??.

 

I can?t help but feel he may have to reconsider his marketing strategy!

 

As always thank you to all of our clients, colleagues and associates that we met along the way that made our long journey enjoyable and worthwhile.If you’d like to meet with us on any of our upcoming trips?please get in touch.

 

Iain Ramsay – Business Development Manager