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At AlbaCore, we focus on the long-term. As one of Europe’s leading alternative credit specialists, we invest in private capital solutions, opportunistic and dislocated credit, and structured products.
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Leader in active quantitative equities across Australian equities, global equities, emerging markets and global small companies.
Backed by a unique blend of research, portfolio construction and risk management, focused on uncovering original insights and translating them into investment strategies that are active and systematic, aiming to generate alpha.
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Specialists in equity portfolios in Asia Pacific, emerging markets, global and sustainable investment strategies
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End of Year Review
End of Year Review
Check the latest First Sentier Investors fund price and fund performance, keep track of funds performance and trends to help investment selections.
As the saying goes, “There are two kinds of forecasters: those who don't know, and those who don't know they don't know.” Recently, we have seen hordes of the latter kind, garbed as analysts, Unicorn founders, freshly-minted CEOs and so-called “experts”, as they engage in modern-day snake oil salesmanship, which is what seems to pass for Fundamental Equity Research these days.
Asia Pacific Equities Strategy Client Update
Once again, 2021 was a year full of surprises and challenges, with ongoing Covid disruptions and China turning from a global outperformer to underperformer. The Chinese government’s policy crackdowns, especially in the internet, education and property sectors, were sudden and dramatic.
FSSA Investment Managers Asia Pacific webcast: Positioning for Reflation
There is still significant uncertainty around Covid-19 and its potential impact globally. The situation could become worse before it gets better – and no one knows when the bottom will be. So far, China has borne the brunt of the epidemic, with parts of the country in lockdown and business activities in some cities grinding to a complete halt.
2020 was indeed a very special year. The whole world was in a recession, due to the pandemic and strict lockdown measures imposed by governments all over the world. Yet, at the same time, all asset classes, including equities, had a very good year in terms of returns. This was due to the monetary easing and fiscal stimulus rolled out by central banks in response to the pandemic.
Given its size and influence, China remains a key investment destination despite ongoing trade disputes and diplomatic tensions with the US and Australia. With a GDP equivalent to around 70% of the United States, many global portfolios continue to feature Chinese equities.
Mutations, it would seem, are not unique to the virus. Starting with some housekeeping, we always end our letters seeking feedback from our regular readers.
The Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) for the European Union Mandates the disclosure of the Principal Adverse Impacts (PAI) that investment decisions have on sustainability factors.
The Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) requires asset managers to report on up to 20 Principal Adverse Impact (PAI) indicators. PAIs are the negative impacts caused by a firm or an asset on the environment and society.
This article focuses on three of the PAIs related to Biodiversity Areas, Emissions to Water, and Hazardous and Radioactive Waste. Each PAI provides details about the measures, some of the challenges related to them, and how investors may use the information they provide.
We examine the characteristics and trend of a well-known measure of quality - Profitability. Firstly, we discuss some of the reasons why it is a useful measure and why it might be persistent through time. It is a strong contributor to alpha, both on the long and short sides.
In our last client update, written through the depths of Covid-despair, we observed that real life and the world of markets are seldom so intimately entwined. With markets swinging violently to the downside on a riptide of fear, it was clear even then that activity was being driven by short-term anxiety rather than a real evaluation of Asia’s longer-term value-accretion prospects.
Last quarter I visited infrastructure companies in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. The trip included visits to ten corporate head offices and three site tours. This paper seeks to share some of the key findings from my meetings with Japanese passenger rail and utility companies.
In boom times like today, when cash costs nothing and capitalisation rates are zero, everybody is focused on growth and the future. Revenue is vanity in the sense that entrepreneurs, thank goodness, dare to dream and build businesses. We too, spend much of our time looking for the next opportunity and indeed thinking about how much businesses can grow.
2021 will be a year of recovery. This is not surprising given last year’s economic downturn. If vaccines are being rolled out gradually during the year, we believe the economy will recover, especially those sectors that have been hit hard like travel. Hong Kong’s travel sector declined by 99.9% last year so there really isn’t much room left to decline.
In order to fully understand why Kaisa defaulted on its bonds, we first need to get a good grasp on the deleveraging policy called the three red lines. Following years of debt-fueled growth in the property sector during which home prices surged six-fold over the past 15 years, the Chinese government decided to rein in excessive credit took on by property developers to avoid Japan’s mistake in the 1990s, which eventually led to long-term damage to growth.
The China equity market includes a myriad of share classes, each with distinct characteristics. ‘Offshore’ Chinese equities are listed on overseas stock exchanges such as New York and Hong Kong and denominated in foreign currencies, while ‘onshore’ Chinese equities are listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges and denominated in RMB.
Achieving gender equity in the corporate world has proved to be a slow and challenging journey. In both developed and emerging markets, women are a minority at both management and board levels. Decades after women began taking on professional and managerial roles, the so-called ‘glass ceiling” appears to be stubbornly persistent.
Though Covid hasn’t yet finished with us, the markets have finished with Covid. In real life, there is still plenty of misery to go around, but things have seldom been better for investors. Optimism has served us well, as the money printing presses have rolled to counter the “unprecedented” threat. In investment, perhaps it is better to be a stupid optimist than a clever pessimist. And, markets do indeed go up most of the time.
We believe financial markets, critical to society’s ability to function, are under threat. For too long, it has been widely accepted that short-term performance, growth, risks and financial returns should be maximised at the expense of environmental and social outcomes.
Modern life seems characterised by extremes, with division and discord the defining features. But, we are living in revolutionary times. Sweeping technological change impacts everything, everywhere. It is an age of accelerated disruption.
The China equity market includes a myriad of share classes, each with distinct characteristics. ‘Offshore’ Chinese equities are listed on overseas stock exchanges such as New York and Hong Kong and denominated in foreign currencies, while ‘onshore’ Chinese equities are listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges and denominated in RMB.
There were a number of structural trends leading up to the Covid pandemic that were all very well understood. And the pandemic has given rise to some newer emerging trends. And what is central to the majority of these trends is the rapid advancement and continued adoption of technology which is driving societal change.
With Initial Public Offerings in India consistently oversubscribed and valuations peaking, the team discuss their five largest holdings and why now is not the time to sell.
All of us have been brutally confronted by a new reality in the last few months. It has certainly been crude, with financial markets swinging around on a riptide of greed and fear, as we the participants have vacillated between elation and despair. It is not surprising. Life and the world of markets are seldom so intimately entwined.
The cascading impacts of climate change and society’s overexploitation of the land and sea is giving rise to unprecedented devastation of nature and biodiversity. In the last 50 years, there has been a devastating 69% drop in wildlife populations[1]. The unfolding crisis is risking the very foundations of our economy, society and life itself, impacting humankind’s food security and access to clean water and air.
Leveraging our recent paper, ‘Reducing carbon intensity in portfolios: Better news than you think’, which analysed the investment impact of reducing carbon exposure versus the benchmark; we turn our attention to how we can reduce carbon risk in our Value strategies. This aligns with our commitment to reducing carbon exposure across our strategies.
2024 was a good year for global listed infrastructure. Strong earnings for energy midstream and a step-change in the earnings growth outlook for utilities helped the asset class to shrug off rising bond yields and political uncertainty.
First Sentier Investors is pleased to announce two key leadership appointments, effective 1 January 2025. Harry Moore is appointed to the newly created role of Chief Commercial Officer; and Lauren Prendiville is appointed as the new Global Head of Distribution and Marketing.
This is the third investor letter for the FSSA Global Emerging Markets Focus Strategy since its launch in November 2017. In this letter, we will discuss our investment approach, process, strategy, positioning, and other matters we think are relevant to investors. As always, should you have any questions or feedback, we would appreciate hearing from you.
Head of Asian Fixed Income, Nigel Foo provides an outlook into 2025 for the strategy.
Our recent paper on Extreme Concentration focussed on the US (and so Developed Markets). This was the natural as the central issue of concentration was among the top 10 stocks in the US, among them, the “Magnificent 7”.
The advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is affecting ever expanding fields of human activity. And the way we invest is no exception. It’s never been more timely for investors, advisors and investment managers to take deep stock of the impacts, real and potential, of AI, so we can better prepare to manage them – whether by leveraging opportunities, managing new risks or, more likely, both.
In September 2023, I met more than 30 global listed infrastructure companies and stakeholders from the UK, Europe and China. The following travel diary summarises my impressions and findings from these meetings.
Global Listed Infrastructure climbed in May as investors anticipated rising economic activity levels. March quarter earnings results were accompanied by generally positive outlook commentary. The FTSE Global Core Infrastructure 50/50 index gained +6.3%, while the MSCI World index^ rose +7.0%.
Recently I attended the largest US utility conference, the 2024 Edison Electric Institute (EEI) Financial Conference, in Hollywood, Florida. I met with management teams from 26 regulated electric and gas utility companies.
This paper asserts that macro towers will remain at the heart of a modern, mobile data communications network despite the continual development of new technologies.
Global listed infrastructure underperformed in 2023 owing to rising interest rates and a shift away from defensive assets. Relative valuations are now at compelling levels. Infrastructure assets are expected to see earnings growth in 2024 and beyond, aided by structural growth drivers.
It was John Templeton who famously skewered that old bull market hubris: “It’s different this time,” as the four most expensive words in the history of investment.
Although financial types everywhere seem to believe that things are absolutely dire, world-ending and the sky is about to fall on our heads, most of humanity have better lives now than in all of history. That is certainly so in the developed world. Prosperity, in our time, has yet again been underwritten by those clever technocrats at the world’s central banks.
After decades of flat electricity demand for US utilities, the industry is now seeing unprecedented demand as growth in data centers / AI, electrification, onshoring and electric vehicles outweighs energy efficiency gains. One utility executive stated: “Seeing all these customers wanting 24/7 load and willing to pay for it – it is every utility’s dream”.
Over the last decade the electricity sector has been at the forefront of decarbonisation, ahead of transport, industry and agriculture.
2024 was a year marked by global inflation and economic growth concerns against a backdrop of worldwide elections. As we head into 2025, volatility will remain an enduring constant.
Corporate culture is a powerful dynamic in a company. It is the set of beliefs and attitudes about the way things are done, and so is a key component of many corporate functions.
The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party, arguably the most important and widely anticipated event in China’s political diary, took place in mid-October.
It was recently the 10th anniversary of Lehman’s collapse; and in Hong Kong, warning signal ‘Typhoon No. 10’ had been hoisted, as the biggest hurricane-strength storm in recent history battered its way through the territory.
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