Japan emerging as a more popular investment opportunity

News - Funds

Written by Ray Clancy

Wednesday, 10 February 2010 09:32

Although Japan is often ignored as an investment destination a fund that invests only in Japanese equities has been awarded a A rating by Standards & Poors.

Ashburton, the Jersey based investment manager, has been awarded the rating for its Japan Equity Fund with the team praised for their good use of external research, willingness to back themes and for a good track record in Asia.

Managed by Ashburton’s Asia Pacific specialist Jonathan Schiessl, the Japan Equity Fund was recently re-named from the Asia Pacific Equity fund following a refocus of the mandate to concentrate solely on equity growth in Japan.

Commenting on the rating Standard and Poors said: ‘Despite the change in mandate, the good performance of the Japan carve-out gives us comfort and we continue to have regard for the experience and knowledge of Schiessl and his thematic approach. The fund gains an S&P A (New) rating.’

Peter Bourne, Managing Director at Ashburton, said the team was pleased that the fund has been recognised. ‘The Fund adopts an active style, with stock picking heavily influenced by macro and thematic drivers. Over the last few years it has been easy to ignore Japan as an investment destination. It is our belief, however, that Japan is likely to surprise positively in the future and investors should not disregard this opportunity,’ he explained.

Meanwhile, GLG Partners has launched the GLG Japan CoreAlpha Equity fund, a currency-hedged replica of its £698 million Japan CoreAlpha fund. The mirror fund, which is domiciled in Dublin, has three share classes hedging exposure to the yen into euros, dollars or sterling. The latter share class will be available from the end of February.

Run by highly-regarded managers Stephen Harker and Neil Edwards, its charges will mirror those of the UK-domiciled fund, with a 1.5% AMC and £1,000 minimum investment.

‘We recognise some investors prefer to mitigate the currency risk when investing abroad so it makes sense to launch a new version of the fund for those keen to gain yen-hedged exposure to Stephen and Neil's proven strategy,’ said GLG joint head of UK retail Richard Phillips.