The fund, available for sale in the US last week, will focus on dividend-paying companies in Asia through a bottom-up, all-cap investment strategy.
Aston, a wholly owned affiliate of Affiliated Managers Group (AMG), is the investment advisor of the fund, while Value Partners is the sub-adviser. Under this partnership, Value Partners will be responsible for the day-to-day management of the fund.
“As we expand our global presence, we are pleased to leverage our strategic partnership with Aston and AMG,” Timothy Tse, CEO of Value Partners said.
Screening process
The fund will be co-managed by Norman Ho and Philip Li. Ho is the firm’s senior investment director with 26 years investment experience while Li is a senior fund manager with 12 years of portfolio management experience.
Value Partners noted in a disclosure that the fund looks at all of Asia to identify potentially undervalued stocks.
Portfolio holdings will be subjected to qualitative (management quality and business model review) and quantitative analysis (profitability, valuation and financial modeling). In addition, a macro overlay will be applied to test the portfolio’s resilience in times of market stress. The team meets weekly to evaluate the fund’s performance.
The average number of holdings in the fund will be 100-130, and the portfolio managers Ho and Li will manage the fund with a long-term view that could result in lower portfolio turnover.
Ho is also portfolio manager for the Value Partners High Dividend Stocks Fund. According to Germaine Share, a research analyst with Morningstar, the fund’s consistently strong performance is due to a good selection of high dividend stocks which are in financials, telecom services and consumer discretionary sectors.
