Two leading UK investment trust companies will open an office in Hong Kong this summer to manage their growing regional investment portfolios that total more than ￡320m (HK$4.7 billion).

The Scottish based companies, The Alliance Trust PLC and The Second Alliance Trust PLC, will use the office to manage their widening portfolios of investments more efficiently and identify the best investment opportunities.

Asian investments make up around 15% of the more than ￡2bn (HK$29 billion) invested by the Alliance Trusts around the world. To date, the companies have managed international investments from their headquarters and this would be the first regional office they have opened.

Alliance Trusts Chief Executive Alan Harden said that Asia is critically important to the companies because of the vibrancy of its economies and the potential they offer to investors seeking growth in our capital and income.

"Now that the Asian market has re-emerged stronger from various challenges over the last decade we are confident about the region's future. We need to be as close as possible to this complex and fast-moving region to invest efficiently, spot opportunities early and monitor our growing portfolio.

"Asia presents cultural, language and time-zone differences that mean the best way to do business efficiently and identify profitable opportunities is to have an investment team on the ground. Also, our contacts and experience in Asia will allow us to build the team of our choice and they will offer us a unique insight that we can use across the portfolio."

The Alliance Trusts' investment in Asia has more than tripled in the last ten years to ￡320m (HK$4.7 billion) and many of the companies in which they invest are increasingly dependent on the Chinese, Japanese and other Asian markets. The Trusts made their first investment in Asia in 1906 with the purchase of a bond issued by a Japanese mining and railway company and began investing on a larger scale in the region from 1976.

Alliance Trusts Head of Equities Grant Lindsay said, "As investors we want to go where the growth is. Asia has learned the lessons from the regional crisis of 1997 and, with its economies now more balanced between export driven growth and domestic consumption, we believe that the region is better placed for sustained growth than it has ever been."

The Alliance Trusts have been investing around the world since the 1880s. They began as mortgage lenders to homesteaders in the US and invest in a wide range of assets including property, oil and mineral rights, fixed income instruments and equities.