Belgian financial group KBC is looking for buyers to take over its 49 percent stake of a Shanghai-based joint venture fund manager because the crisis-hit European firm is ready to withdraw from the Chinese mainland.
Sources told Shanghai Daily Friday that the firm is in the final stages of retreating from the mainland market as Lode Vermeersch, chief operating officer and the only person assigned by KBC to work at KBC Goldstate Fund Management Co, is expected to leave as early as June. The JV was established with Shenzhen-based Goldstate Securities in 2006.
But Huo Yin, a spokesman for the JV, said he was not aware of the venture's withdrawal. Stef Leunens, press officer of KBC, declined to comment in an e-mail because the company "is not in a habit of commenting on market rumors."
Another reason for the stake disposal cited by the sources, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, was that the Chinese and Belgian partners could not cooperate smoothly.
Vermeersch, who used to be the head of the fund's investment department, was always the last to be notified of any business updates, the sources said.
"Every file in the firm is in Chinese, and the Chinese staff is not good at English," they said. "It always takes a long time to tell the foreign executive (Vermeersch) what is going on."
The venture was rated as the worst fund manager by business scale and market share among China's 60 fund firms last year.
The venture saw its assets under management slump 60 percent to 1.3 billion yuan (US$197 million) as the mainland stock market was lackluster last year.
