CREDIT Lyonnais International Asset Management (Hong Kong) has won two awards in the Fund Manager of the Year stakes - the five-year Far East and Pacific equities award (with its CL Pacific Growth Fund) and the five-year Global Emerging Markets Equities award (with the CL Developing Markets Fund).
The CL Pacific Growth Fund is managed from San Francisco by CL fund manager Julia Sze.
The fund aims for long-term capital growth by investing in a diversified portfolio of Pacific region stocks. Its main investment targets as at February 1 were Hong Kong (25.3 per cent of assets), Malaysia (20.8 per cent) and Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines (about 10 per cent each).
In US dollar terms with income re-invested, the Pacific Growth Fund returned 155.9 per cent in the five years to February 1, compared with the 6.5 per cent rise in the benchmark MSCI Pacific Index over the same period.
Over three years, the fund returned 2.2 per cent (compared with the MSCI's negative 15.4 per cent) and 11.4 per cent over one year (compared with the index negative of 17.2 per cent).
The manager's views on Asian markets were summarised in a report. 'In recent years, Asia's phenomenal growth has been fuelled by increasing intra-regional trade and investment, domestic demand related to infrastructural development and consumer spending. This growth is expected to continue into the next century and the fund should enable investors to benefit from the region's growth potential.' CL takes an active bottom-up approach to managing its funds.
'Value is added through rigorous research, company visits and the discipline of the master list, an in-house-developed stock selection tool of our investment team,' the company says. The master list contains stocks identified as offering the best value in each particular market.