SINGAPORE - Thursday, 13 March 2025: Stewart Investors today announced its partnership with DBS Bank to offer its 22-year old Asia Pacific Leaders strategy to investors in Singapore. As an active, long-only equity manager, Stewart Investors focuses on high-quality companies that are well positioned to contribute to, and benefit from, sustainable development. They include companies that are solving difficult problems, meeting vital needs, and helping society do more with less.

Launched in December 2003, Stewart Investors Asia Pacific Leaders strategy has been offering to investors in Europe, the U.K. and the U.S. and is now expanding to accredited and retail investors in Singapore for the first time through DBS Private Bank and consumer banking channels. 

Stewart Investors Asia Pacific Leaders is a bottom-up, high conviction and benchmark agnostic strategy, investing in high-quality companies in Asia Pacific excluding Japan with a market value of at least US$1 billion (hence ‘Leaders’).

Since inception, the strategy delivered an annualised return of 10.3% compared to 7.9% by the benchmark MSCI AC Asia Pacific ex-Japan Index (gross) during the period from 2004 to 20241.  

Mr Hugh O’Neill, Business Head of Stewart Investors, said: “We are excited to partner with DBS Bank, one of the largest banks in Asia, which has more than five decades of experience across the region with an extensive business network as well as a strong commitment to building lasting relationships with its customers.

We are seeing investor demand for portfolio diversification in the region. In addition to its proven track record of capital preservation2 during market downturns such as the Global Financial Crisis and Covid-19, Stewart Investors Asia Pacific Leaders strategy has low correlation to peers and index, offering investors a valuable opportunity to diversify their portfolios amid market uncertainty,” he added.

Mr Kenneth Teow, Head of Fund Selection at DBS Private Bank, said: “We are pleased to partner with Stewart Investors, a well-trusted and long-standing fund manager that focuses on quality and stewardship strategies with a robust due diligence process. We believe the new offering will offer diversification benefits to our clients, while providing exposure to high quality companies with strong growth prospects that meet present and future needs of the society and environment.

About Stewart Investors

Founded in 1988, Stewart Investors is an active, long-only equity manager focused on sustainable investing. With offices in Edinburgh, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, Singapore, New York and Sydney, Stewart Investors manages more than $17.7 billion* globally, focusing on Asia Pacific, emerging markets, regional, and worldwide sustainable equity strategies. For more information, please visit: www.stewartinvestors.com.

*as of 31 December 2024.

About First Sentier Investors

First Sentier Investors is a global asset management group providing high quality, differentiated and relevant investment capabilities to deliver exceptional investment performance for our clients. Today, across the First Sentier Investors Group, we manage US$134.9 billion* in assets across global and regional equities, cash and regional fixed income, infrastructure and property, and alternative credit. 

We are home to investment teams and brands such as AlbaCore Capital Group, FSSA Investment Managers, Igneo Infrastructure Partners, RQI Investors and Stewart Investors. All investment teams operate with discrete investment autonomy, according to their investment philosophies and based on responsible investment principles.  

Our organisation was acquired by Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc in August 2019. We operate as a standalone global investment management business with offices across Europe, the Americas, and Asia Pacific.   

We are a globally Certified B Corporation and signatory to the UK Stewardship Code.  For more information, visit www.firstsentierinvestors.com.

*as of 31 December 2024.

Footnotes

  1. Source: Stewart Investors, as of 31 December 2024.

  2. Protection of the original amount of investment from loss.

Media Contacts:

For Asia media enquiries

Gladys Tang
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Important Information

This press release is intended for information only, aimed solely at the media and should not be further distributed to individual and/or corporate investors, and financial advisers and/or distributors. The information included within this press release and any supplemental documentation provided should not be copied, reproduced or redistributed without the prior written consent of First Sentier Investors.

In Singapore, this press release is issued by First Sentier Investors (Singapore) whose company registration number is 196900420D. This press release has not been reviewed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

First Sentier Investors (registration number 53236800B), FSSA Investment Managers (registration number 53314080C), Stewart Investors (registration number 53310114W), RQI Investors (registration number 53472532E) and Igneo Infrastructure Partners (registration number 53447928J) are the business divisions of First Sentier Investors (Singapore).