Why APAC Quant Talent Is Underpriced and Oversubscribed

The Asymmetry

Global multi-strategy platforms spent the last decade building out their New York and London pods. The result: a bidding war for a finite pool of Western-trained quant talent that has driven senior PM compensation to levels that compress fund economics.

Meanwhile, Asia-Pacific has quietly produced a generation of systematic traders and quantitative researchers trained at the best programmes in the world — and compensated, until recently, at a significant discount to their Western peers.

Why the Gap Exists

Three structural factors created the APAC talent discount:

1. Geographic arbitrage. Firms headquartered in New York benchmark compensation to local market rates. APAC PMs operating remotely or in smaller local offices were benchmarked to lower local comparables — even when generating equivalent alpha.

2. Network opacity. The information asymmetry in APAC hiring is remarkable. A PM at a mid-tier HK multi-strat platform may be running a book indistinguishable in quality from a peer in New York — but with a fraction of the recruiter attention and competing offers.

3. Platform fragmentation. APAC's systematic trading community is distributed across Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, and Sydney, with limited cross-border visibility. This fragmentation suppresses competition for individual candidates.

The Inflection Point

Two forces are converging to close this gap faster than most CIOs expect.

First, multi-strat platforms are now explicitly building APAC capabilities as a strategic priority — not just for coverage of Asian markets, but for diversification of alpha sources. Platforms that were Hong Kong-curious in 2022 are now Hong Kong-committed.

Second, APAC talent knows its worth. The generation of quant researchers and systematic traders who trained in the 2010s are now senior enough to demand, and receive, global market compensation. The information gap is closing.

The Implication for Hiring Firms

Firms that move now — before the market fully re-prices APAC talent — will secure exceptional specialists at a structural discount. Firms that wait will pay full global market rates plus a location premium for anyone willing to relocate to New York.

The arbitrage window is measured in months, not years.

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Bayes Group places systematic trading and quantitative investment talent across the Asia-Pacific region. If you are building a team in APAC or seeking access to this talent pool, reach out.