Asian Investor – Swiss Financial Services has become the latest provider to enter Asia’s growing hedge-fund administration space, setting up shop in Singapore. The move marks the first Asia foray by the Zurich-based firm and comes at a time when numerous players have entered the regional market, including Citigroup and LaCrosse.

Swiss Financial Services’ Singapore offices will be run by Christine Lau, managing director, and Karl Gysin, director of business and corporate development. Gysin transferred to Singapore last month from Switzerland, while Lau from Cargill Investor Services. At her former employer, Lau was running its brokerage arm before Cargill Investor Services was sold to the ill-fated Refco in 2005.

The Singapore office is now servicing its global client base investment managers, hedge fund managers, commodity trading advisors, banks, brokerage firms and other financial institutions. The team is five strong and will expand headcount in line with revenues.

The plan to expand to Asia has been on the drawing board for some time, says Gysin: “We’ve been seriously looking to enter the Asian market since late 2005 and made the decision then to service the entire region from one location. We chose Singapore over Hong Kong because we see it as a favourable market to service the hedge-fund industry, due to a solid growth of new hedge managers as well as new service providers entering the marketplace.”

As in other global markets, Swiss Financial Services will offer a full suite of support to its target clients in fund creation, administration and accounting. Aside from acting as administrator to the fund, the firm will also coordinate all the start-up functions, oversee the day-to-day operations of the fund and act as a liaison between investment managers, banks, brokers, custodians, auditors, tax advisors and regulatory authorities.

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