Manulife Singapore unit appoints Pang Cheng Duan Head of Fixed Income

Company banks on Cheng Duan's experience extending presence in Singapore's institutional market.

Manulife Asset Management (Singapore) Pte Ltd, part of MFC Global Investment Management, announces that it has appointed Mr. Pang Cheng Duan as Head of Fixed Income.

In his new role at Manulife Asset Management (Singapore), Cheng Duan will oversee the company's fixed income desk and lead the development of the company's external business, following the launch of its unit trust platform in September 2009. Overseeing the company's fixed income strategies, he will work alongside the company's equities professionals, Amy Low and Grace Ho, and feed into MFC Global Investment Management's regional investment strategies, according to a press statement of Manulife on Thursday.

Singaporean-national, Cheng Duan joins from UT Asset Management, the asset management arm of Usaha Tegas Group in Singapore, where he was Chief Investment Officer.

Prior to that, he spent almost eight years at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), where he was lead portfolio manager in its US Bloc Bond and Japan Bond teams. Latterly, he was MAS' Head of Foreign Exchange, Liquidity and Gold Division where he managed a team of currency overlay and liquidity provision portfolio managers located in Singapore and London.

Cheng Duan has also spent time stationed in Tokyo, Japan as the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation's (GIC) Deputy Representative. In this role, he was portfolio manager for the GIC's Asia Division managing Japanese yen, Australian and New Zealand dollar and Asian emerging market fixed income portfolios in local currencies.

Cheng Duan replaces Mr. Akira Okada, who has moved to MFC Global Investment Management's Hong Kong office to take up a regional role managing the company's general account fixed income strategies.

MFC Global Investment Management has over US$2billion in assets under management in Singapore as of December 31, 2009.