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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.
Download overviewThe 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: Q3 2024
Asia Pacific Leaders strategy update: 1 July - 30 September 2024
Over most three-month periods, there should be relatively little change in the portfolio. We aim to build resilient portfolios of high-quality companies with diversified streams of cash flows that have the ability to grow in value over the long term.
During the last few days of the quarter the Chinese central bank and government announced monetary and fiscal stimulus measures for the economy, causing Chinese stocks to rally significantly. Whilst it is heartening to see the Chinese authorities attempting to address the problems within the economy it remains unclear whether this stimulus will adequately address broader structural issues like the lack of consumer demand.
The portfolio initiated a position in ICICI Lombard (India: Financials), a conservatively run insurer set to potentially benefit from rising insurance penetration in India. We also purchased a new position in Ayala (Philippines: Industrials), a 190-year-old Filipino conglomerate stewarded by the Ayala family who in recent years have appointed the first ever non-family CEO.
During the quarter we continued to add to Techtronic Industries (Hong Kong: Industrials) and increased our position in Kasikornbank (Thailand: Financials) and Dabur (India: Consumer Staples).
We trimmed our position size in Midea (China: Consumer Discretionary). Whilst we continue to be impressed by Midea’s management team, the efficiency of their production base and their capital allocation, we are wary of the risk US and European tariffs may pose to the 40% of the business which exports goods.1 We also trimmed HDFC Bank (India: Financials), Kotak Mahindra Bank (India: Financials), and Fisher & Paykel Healthcare (New Zealand: Health Care) to fund better ideas elsewhere.
We sold Vitasoy (Hong Kong: Consumer Staples) for liquidity reasons and to fund better ideas elsewhere.