Is Mona Lisa Toast?

Sometimes a picture says more than a thousand words. K11, a high end shopping area in Kowloon features this Mona Lisa version, made of toast.

So I started to think, is she?

To some extent, yes. Asia has pulled ahead in many areas of the world. Exports from China helped Germany report declining unemployment and record export numbers, HSBC moved its chairman to HK, heads of private banks are packing their bags en masse to move to Asia and the region by and large helped the world recover from the crisis faster.

Moreover, long-term net flows to mutual funds in the last five years stand at $1 trillion for Asia, compared to half that in Europe.

Earlier this week I had dinner with a Parisian executive that ten years ago built a private banking unit in Paris and now heads up Asia. He loves to go back to Paris – to visit. Asia is the opportunity for him and his company. He is not alone.

A number of US and European firms in recent years moved their heads of global product development to Asia-Pacific, given the much greater focus on product innovation and new fund launches here. DWS launched a climate change fund in Taiwan before exporting it to Germany and the US. BOC started a private bank in Geneva offering Swiss equity funds denominated in Renminbi. Japan uses both its US and Brazil links to structure melting pot products to offer to its retail clientele – conceived in NY, invested via Brazil, structured in London, domiciled in Cayman, sold in the streets of Japan.

Welcome to the future.

I spent this past week with clients in mainland China to discuss business models of international fund managers and how they might be able to offer their expertise outside of China via Hong Kong – seven of the top ten Chinese fund managers now have Hong Kong subsidiaries to explore opportunities; and dozens of them flew to NY last month to a investment conference on China/US. I presented with John Kerry and the chair of Lazard on the future of this relationship (competition and collaboration) and John Kerry during the Q&A argued that Asia will avoid many of the mistakes the US 401k system has made.

Europe still has the Mona Lisa and Louis Vuitton – but most of the people nowadays looking at it are from Asia and on their way back to the hotel they stop at the LV flagship store on the Champs Elysees to buy a few dozen bags.

In Asia, in the meantime, Mona Lisa is toast.