Meet the Nordic Asia team: Yining Wang

Please tell us briefly about yourself and your background?

I am of Swedish-Chinese origin, I grew up in Sweden from the age of 6 but with a mixture of Western and Chinese upbringing. After graduating from Stockholm School of Economics I was very fortunate to join Melker Schörling AB as part of their “Påläggskalv” or Apprentice/Management Trainee program.

With my dual cultural background and the swift economic growth in China and Asia that during the past decade, I felt an urgency to learn and participate in the opportunities in the East. As a result, I moved to Hong Kong in 2014 to join Assa Abloy’s APAC Division as it is one of Melker Schörling’s core portfolio companies. At Assa Abloy APAC I worked for 5 years with approximately 50% of the time traveling extensively to our subsidiaries in China and rest of Asia.

How did you come up with the idea to start Nordic Asia?

The idea of Nordic Asia is tightly connected to my background and experiences. I have a finance background and equity investments has always been my passion. During my time at Stockholm School of Economics one of my greatest achievements was to head a team that became the global runner up in the CFA Global Research Challenge held in New York 2012.

When I moved to Hong Kong and witnessed the rapid growth in consumption taking place in China, I became very intrigued by the emergence of the modern consumption focused internet champions. I started to study this universe and shifted my personal investment portfolio from primarily a Nordic centric portfolio to an Asian / Chinese consumption driven investment portfolio. These companies grew very well during the past years at the same time more local champions made their IPO debut towards 2018.

When sharing this insight to investment professionals in Sweden, we noticed that the awareness of these companies was limited due to geographic distance, lack of transparency, language, and cultural barriers etc. As a result, the allocation to this structural growth sector is insufficient in Sweden and we need to serve as a catalyst to increase the portfolio allocation in Sweden towards the consumption driven champions in China and in Asia.

What challenges in the market do you think Nordic Asia will resolve?

Firstly, we need to solve the lack of exposure towards the Chinese consumption sector for Swedish and Nordic Investors by reducing the information asymmetry and entry barriers. By doing this, we support these investors to gradually allocate a portion of their investment portfolios to this sector.

By finding the right investment opportunities we believe we can generate approximately 15% per year in fundamental earnings growth. To do this we need to find the “needles in the haystack”, starting by searching for the “right haystack”. As long we look in the “right haystack” we can reduce the risk and improve return by a wide margin.

What skills and experiences do you bring to Nordic Asia and what is your role at Nordic Asia?

My strength is the ability to take our well developed and proven investment philosophy / processes in the Nordics, implement it locally in China through our investment research team in Shanghai, and apply it to an investment universe with more favorable long-term structural growth potential.

I also hope to bring my experiences from both Sweden and Asia, learning from these two business cultures and to combine the strength of these worldviews to create a unique firm that is innovative, fast paced, pragmatic and down to earth that can create unique values to our investors and clients at an unparalleled efficiency.

Another key role is to build a strong team that is passionate for our mission and to provide a solid platform for team members to reach their true potential. In Chinese there is a saying ”天道酬勤” which means that opportunities and good things will present itself to those who are well prepared. My responsibility is to find talents who are well prepared and provide them with an opportunity to accomplish something truly impactful in the long-term.

In your view what makes Nordic Asia unique and what is your visions for Nordic Asia?

We are unique is many ways for example as the catalyst in the cross-section of three strong structural growth trends:

1. Structural need of increased investment allocation from the West to Asia and China (Rise of the East)

2. Direct digital distribution of investment products / opportunities to customers (Mobile Internet Digitalization and distribution of investment products)

3. Need for reduced short-term profit making with high risk, high fees and short-term peer benchmarks and focus on long-term sustainable capital growth and wealth preservation (Sustainability and impact)

Nordic Asia is a unique investment firm that leverage and synergize all three structural growth trends into one firm and serves as a catalyst to ride on all three structural growth trends. We are an independent and innovative firm with a vision to provide products and services to our investors and users so that they can enjoy sustainable above average market returns at lower risk with higher degree of transparency and efficiency. Our journey has just started, and we face great challenges and uncertainties to reach our audacious vision. Rome was not built in one day, but it will be built and our team is highly passionate to make it happen.

Please follow us on our journey ahead and we would much appreciate your support in the future.

Thanks for now and hope to connect with you soon again,

Best Regards

Yining