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Asia Pacific Leaders
The Asia Pacific Leaders strategy invests in large and mid-sized companies which generally have a total stock market value of at least US$1 billion.
The Asia Pacific Leaders strategy was originally launched in December 2003 and invests in large and mid-sized companies which generally have a total stock market value of at least US$1 billion (hence ‘Leaders’).
This equity-only strategy seeks to invest in between 30 to 60 high-quality businesses in the Asia Pacific region (including Australia and New Zealand, but excluding Japan) that are helping bring about a more sustainable future.
Strategy highlights: a focus on quality and sustainability
- Companies must contribute to sustainable development. Portfolio Explorer >
- We invest in high-quality companies with exceptional cultures, strong franchises and resilient financials. How we pick companies >
- We avoid companies linked to harmful activities and engage and vote for positive change. Our position on harmful products >
- Our approach is long-term, bottom-up, high conviction and benchmark agnostic
- We focus on capital preservation as well as capital growth – we define risk as the permanent loss of client capital
Latest insights
Quarterly updates
Strategy update: Q1 2025
Asia Pacific Leaders strategy update: 1 January - 31 March 2025
While broad Asia Pacific market indices edged slightly higher in both US dollar and Australian dollar terms, they moved slightly lower in euro and sterling terms. Perhaps of greater significance was that political turbulence resulted in a wide divergence of returns on a country level. Market indices in China, South Korea and Singapore moved higher but fell across the rest of the region, with some markets suffering double-digit falls.
Most notable was the extent of the divergence in returns between markets in India (down) and China (up). Investors’ enthusiasm for Chinese equities was, in part, a response to DeepSeek’s impressive demonstration of the progress the country is making in AI. Market-friendly rhetoric from the government in Beijing and hopes that the United States’ trade tariffs might not prove too onerous also helped to underpin the gains. In contrast, while there was relatively little news from India, share prices fell back from elevated levels, as they did in many other parts of the world; returns from the Indian market over the quarter were broadly in-line with those from markets in the United States.
During the quarter, we added new positions in S.F. Holding (China: Industrials), Mindray (China: Health Care) and Alibaba (China: Consumer Discretionary). We believe all three companies have the potential to benefit from China’s new emphasis on national self-reliance. Over the last five years, the stewards of Chinese companies have, often for the first time, been tested by genuine economic and political adversity. They have applied the lessons learned during this period of adversity, strengthening their franchises and balance sheets. This, in combination with valuations that appear modest by global standards, means we have been identifying a greater number of new investment ideas in China.
We are also finding quality companies at attractive valuations in the Philippines and India. The competition between new ideas for a place in the portfolio has rarely been this intense. The result was a busier-than-normal quarter. As part of this, and in addition to the Chinese names mentioned above, we added Bank of the Philippine Islands (Philippines: Financials) and BDO Unibank (Philippines: Financials). Both banks are family owned and professionally managed. They complement our existing investment in Ayala (Philippines: Industrials), to which we also added over the quarter. In India, we added a new holding in Bajaj Auto (India: Consumer Discretionary), a leading manufacturer of motorcycles, scooters and auto rickshaws backed by a high-quality steward.