Specialist financial PR in demand in Asia

King's book, Control: The Emerging Threats to Western Prosperity, surmises that investors and companies looking to gets trong returns, are increasingly looking to the Asian markets, both to list and to park their spare cash. Over the past two years for example, French skincare giant L’Occitane has listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKex), followed by Italian luxury brand, Prada. Insurance firm AIG has also listed as AIA with Hong Kong’s biggest initial public offering, worth US$20.5 billion.

Furthermore, business leaders themselves are following that money. HSBC CEO Stuart Gulliver’s principal office is now based in Hong Kong (he relocated last year) and JP Morgan has moved its international banking unit to the city state from New York.

The latest Global Financial Index places Hong Kong in third place with a score of 759, a mere 10 points behind New York City in second and 16 points behind London in first place. Singapore follows closely in fourth place with a score of 722 and is tailed by Asian cities Shanghai and Tokyo both tied for the fifth spot.

“While the financial centre of excellence still lies in New York and London, the Asian market has matured so much – it’s a lot bigger now and there is huge potential,” said Alastair Hetherington, head of the newly-launched RLM Finsbury Hong Kong office in an interview with Campaign.

WPP-owned RLM Finsbury was created in July by the merger of Finsbury, and Robinson Lerer & Montgomery. It specialises in financial PR with the majority of its work focused on communication with stakeholders in the capital markets, and specialist finance media.

When the firm launched its Hong Kong office at the end of August, it recruited Hetherington from financial communications firm FTI. “With the Asian market’s rapid growth in the financial sector, it makes sense to form specialist agencies servicing this sector,” said Hetherington, adding that he had joined RLM Finsbury because of the opportunity to spearhead its expansion into Asia.

At present, Hong Kong has around four or five local specialist agencies and around five international ones, said Hetherington. Those international agencies include his former employer, Financial Dynamic, now a part of FTI Consulting.

Its Asia-Pacific chairman Ray Bashford agrees the trend is becoming more prevalent, but questions how many newcomers local markets can sustain. "Where you really achieve economies (of scale) is when you do conduct business on behalf of your clients across geographies," he tells Campaign. He says FTI offers only select services: corporate communications, advisory and financial services PR, but is able to do so across a significant global network. This, he says, gives clients greater opportunities when they are working across multiple markets, including western clients investing in China, and Chinese clients expanding into major Western markets.

The Asia Pacific region is of particular importance to the firm’s global growth strategy. “We have a very strong network across the Asia Pacific region and this delivers our firm and our clients a distinct advantage within the specialist financial communications market,” Bashford said,.   

RLM Finsbury’s expansion into Asia, continued Hetherington, was in large part at the behest of its clients looking to either expand into Asia or out of it. “We have about four clients at present, one of which was referred by the global network,” he shared.

The listing of large multinationals like AIA, which Hetherington worked on last year, has made global investors growi more comfortable with listing in the region. “Local Asian investors are taking all this in stride – they’ve always been very shrewd and have gotten highly sophisticated,” he said.

Local PR firm SPRG, which also has a financial services specialisation finds itself working with a wider and more varied client base. “Asia, and in particular Hong Kong, is now regarded as the most popular fund raising market in the world.  Consequently, local financial PR practitioners have enjoyed increased opportunity to work with companies from around the world compared with past years when most clients originated from Greater China,” noted  Richard Tsang, chairman and managing director of SPRG.

Agency Financial PR Group also has plans to expand into Hong Kong. The specialist agency, already a leading brand in Singapore and Greater China received funding in July from BlueFocus Communications, which acquired a 40% equity stake in the agency, to aid its expansion.

Commenting on the acquisition, Zhao Wenquan, BlueFocus’ CEO said, "The investment in Financial PR Group marks a significant milestone for BlueFocus as this is our first overseas acquisition. As institutional investors gain greater market influence, the demand from listed companies for effective investor relations services will evolved strongly."

While general PR agencies can undertake to have specialist arms dealing in financial PR, Hetherington is of the opinion that small, specialist ones are better suited to the business. Currently RLM Finsbury has a headcount of six, some followed him from his previous company and others joined from overseas.

Over the coming year, Hetherington is tasked with expanding into Singapore and Beijing, market conditions permitting.

“It will take some time, but I’d like to achieve here what the agency has achieved in London,” he said listing achievements which include adviser to over 30 companies on the FTSE 100 and being named PR Week’s "most influential" PR adviser.