Launched on 2 November, the Luxembourg-domiciled Ucits compliant fund has so far been registered for sale in the UK, Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland.
The asset management and fund distribution arm of Swiss private bank, Pictet and Cie, said the fund will adopt a directional approach which it said will exploit the long term outperformance of Asia-ex Japan.
Lead manager on the fund will be Nidhi Mahurkar, with her team Anthony Cheung and Olivier Dolieres. Pictet said the team will follow a bottom-up investment approach based on “well researched” fundamentals mirroring a strategy Mahurkar has run at Pictet since 2002.
The PTR-Banyan Fund is the fourth total return strategy the asset manager has launched. It follows the PTR-Corto Fund (European long/short), PTR-Mandarin Fund (China long/short) and the PTR-Kosmos Fund (Global credit long/short).
Explaining the opportunities for investors in the Asia ex-Japan region, Pictet said, despite the attention it has received in recent years, emerging Asian markets remain “under-penetrated, under researched and often lack transparency”. The company added that such conditions offer “ample opportunity” for the approach of the fund and, moreover, the freedom to apply hedging strategies allows the fund to be defensive in down markets and to profit from volatility.
Mahurkar said: “While the West is experiencing a multi-year deleveraging, the East promises strong economic growth and rising domestic consumption for years ahead. We aim to capture this growth and protect investors during the periodic sharp reversals that can occur in these markets.”
