Asia lures U.S. investors

Asia lures U.S. investors

SINGAPORE (AFP): Investors from the United States are being increasingly drawn to Asian firms they feel offer better growth opportunities than U.S. companies, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) president said in remarks published yesterday.

"There's a growing interest among U.S. investors in investing in non-U.S. companies, especially those from the Asia-Pacific area," Richard Grasso told Singapore's Business Times.

He, however, added that the U.S. investors' interest in Asian companies, although growing, was still at an embryonic stage as even the most aggressive U.S. manager has less than seven percent of his portfolio in non-U.S. securities.

Grasso, president and vice-chairman of the NYSE, was in Singapore over the weekend on a mission that will also take him to Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia to draw more Asian firms to get listed on U.S. bourses, the daily said.

Grasso, who will take over in June as chairman of the NYSE, said going global was the only way for the U.S. capital market to grow faster. Some 80 percent of 2,800 U.S. companies that qualify are already listed on the bourse.

The remaining 20 percent would be able to increase the NYSE's market capitalization only by nine percent, he said.

But just the top one-third of 2,000 non-U.S. companies the NYSE has targeted could more than double the bourse's size. Some 500 of the companies are from the Asia-Pacific region.

Only about 30 Asian, non-Japanese, companies are listed on the NYSE presently.