Hamilton Lane (NASDAQ: HLNE) recently announced that Victor Jung is joining the firm as Head of Digital Assets.
In this role, Jung will be “responsible for developing and overseeing the execution of the firm’s digital asset strategy.”
He will oversee this strategy globally and “report directly to Frederick Shaw, Chief Risk Officer and Global Head of Operations.”
Jung brings “nearly a decade of leadership experience in financial services across both institutional and private wealth channels to Hamilton Lane.”
He was “most recently Head of Distribution Partners & Liquid Private Markets – Asia Pacific, at Partners Group.” In that role, Jung “oversaw business development and led the onboarding of the firm’s first three wealth technology platforms.”
Shaw stated:
“We’re committed to expanding access to this asset class for a broader set of investors, and to bringing greater usability and transparency through the use of technologies like blockchain. We are thrilled to welcome Victor to our team as we look to build on our digital asset offering and continue to find innovative ways to serve investors of all sizes around the world.”
This news comes as the firm looks “to broaden its digital asset offering, which today includes a partnership with Singapore-based digital securities exchange ADDX, offering tokenized access to Hamilton Lane’s Global Private Assets Fund.”
The Fund is accessible to ADDX investors “at a minimum ticket size of $10,000, compared to the minimum of $125,000 or more for investors who subscribe via traditional, non-tokenized distribution channels.”
The partnership, and subsequent balance sheet investment into ADDX, “made Hamilton Lane one of the earliest major private markets firms to tokenize a fund, and reflect the firm’s long-standing commitment to identifying and investing in innovative technology solutions as a means of solving for some of the traditional pain points in the asset class.”
For more than a decade, the firm has been “making strategic investments into innovative financial technology firms aimed at improving access and transparency within the private markets.”
Many of the companies in which the firm has invested today “are viewed as standard bearers for the industry.”
In addition to ADDX, recent investments have “included ESG technology platform Novata and wealth management fintech platform TIFIN.”
Jung remarked:
“Hamilton Lane is a firm that shares in my belief that digital assets present a major opportunity for the private markets, and are likely to be transformative within this asset class. I look forward to collaborating with a leadership team that is committed to investing in and adopting transformational solutions – and partnering with leading fintech platforms globally – in an effort to deliver best-in-class services to investors looking to diversify into or expand allocation to the private markets.”
As noted in the update, Hamilton Lane claims to be “a leading private markets investment management firm providing innovative solutions to institutional and private wealth investors around the world.”
Dedicated exclusively to private markets investing for 30 years, the firm currently “employs approximately 530 professionals operating in offices throughout North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East.”
Hamilton Lane “has over $901 billion in assets under management and supervision, composed of more than $106 billion in discretionary assets and nearly $795 billion in advisory assets, as of March 31, 2022.”
Hamilton Lane specializes in building flexible investment programs that “provide clients access to the full spectrum of private markets strategies, sectors and geographies.”