(Yicai Global) Aug. 31 -- China's securities regulator has recently approved the application to set up a publicly-offered fund company which US investment management giant BlackRock filed back in April, the agency announced Aug. 29. The New York-based asset management leviathan thus becomes the first wholly overseas-owned mutual fund entity in China.

Zhang Chi, the ex-deputy director of TaiKang Asset Management, will be the legal representative and general manager, of the new company, BlackRock Fund Management. The firm's registered capital will be CNY300 million (USD43.22 million). Formation of the company will finish and its registered capital will be paid in within six months of Aug. 21, the day the approval took effect.

China revoked the restrictions on the proportion of overseas shareholding in securities brokerages and companies that manage mutual funds on April 1, when BlackRock and fellow asset manager Neuberger Berman filed applications to set up public fund management entities, the first in the file of foreign applicants.

The new company must also obtain a grant to ply the securities and futures business from China Securities Regulatory Commission after it gains a business license from the Administration for Industry and Commerce. It must further issue mutual fund products within six months after securing the certificate for its futures business, the CSRC noted on its official website.

BlackRock also sought to set up asset-management affiliates in China in addition to the mutual fund company. The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission recently greenlighted the formation of a joint-venture financial management company by the trio of BlackRock, Fullerton Financial and Jianxin Financial Management, the last a wholly-owned unit of China Construction Bank, CBIRC's vice chairman Zhu Shumin noted, adding more globally-renowned financial institutions will soon be seeking admission to the Chinese market.

BlackRock, which formed in 1988, and now holds assets worth nearly USD7 trillion worldwide, has grown into a first-tier fund-manager on Wall Street on the back of a burgeoning turnover of exchange-traded funds in the wake of the financial crisis and by relying on its fintech advantages. The US Federal Reserve System commissioned BlackRock Financial Markets Advisory to implement bailout plans on behalf of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to purchase investment-grade corporate bonds and partial mortgage-backed securities during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Editors: Xu Wei, Ben Armour