Investment funds focused on very different areas of business one on luxury goods, the other on waste management have unveiled Singapore dollar variations of their existing offerings.
The Singapore dollar sub-fund and hedged Singapore dollar share class, respectively, are designed to accommodate investors who are paid in Singapore dollars or hold assets in the currency – which is currently among the world’s strongest – and prefer to keep them there, or who wish to shift into Singapore dollars from another, currently-less-robust currency.
News of the new Singapore dollar options for investors came yesterday during International Adviser’s annual Expert Investor Forum in Singapore, attended by advisory industry delegates mainly from Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.
Credit Suisse’s Luxury Goods fund
Credit Suisse, with its Luxury Goods Equity Fund (factsheet available here), managed out of Singapore by Juan Manuel Mendoza, was the first of the two funds into the Singapore dollar market, having launched its Singapore dollar hedged share class on 12 Sept.
The fund, which invests in the shares of publicly-traded luxury companies around the world, was initially launched in 2000 as a euros-only, Guernsey-domiciled entity. It redomiciled in Luxemburg in 2009, and added a US dollar share class in 2010.
The fund invests in the shares of publicly-traded luxury companies around the world as well as a growing number of Asian luxury brands, and typically holds between 25 and 50 stocks at a time, Mendoza said.
‘Brass in muck’ fund
Premier Investment Opportunities Fund (website available
here), meanwhile, received MAS approval for its new Singapore dollar sub-fund on Wednesday, hours before the chief executive of New Earth Solutions Group, Mark Scobie, outlined the fund’s investment strategy – which involves of providing financing for waste and waste-to-energy infrastructure businesses in the UK – to the Expert Investor Forum delegates.
The Channel Islands Stock Exchange-listed protected cell company will begin dealing on 7 Nov, he said.
Previously, the fund was available only in a choice of pounds sterling, euros or US dollars.
Scobie noted that although the fund dealt directly in waste investments of various types, it is already proving the truth behind the northern English saying that there is “brass” to be found in “muck”.
The fund’s investments include operations that function like a municipal waste collector, except that instead of landfilling the materials it collects, they deal with them by sorting out the components with resale value, such as metals and plastics, and treating the remaining mass for use as compost or fuel.
The fund currently runs five treatment plants of varying kinds in the UK, and its managers foresee the potential for dramatic growth, according to Scobie, given the businesses’ ability to provide waste collecting services more cheaply than most their competitors, and the fact that landfill costs are due to rise steadily over the next few years.
Since inception in July 2008, the fund’s sterling sub-fund has returned 59.2% to investors; the euro and US dollar sub-funds, launched later and affected by hedging, have returned 25.8% and 24.8% respectively, Scobie said.
The Premier Group is headquartered on the Isle of Man.
