David Leary, First State's London-based head of global equities and manager of the First State Global 100 Fund, takes a global approach when picking investments.
He and the team of internal analysts at First State Investments, part of Australia's Commonwealth Bank Group, analyse industry sectors such as technology, oil or consumer goods on a worldwide basis.
'We tend to look at an industry from a global perspective and try to pick a handful of decent stock ideas from the particular industry, wherever they happen to be in the world.
'That works particularly well in an area like technology, where the value chain is clearly global. On the face of it, it might not work so well in areas where there is a big local influence on business, such as consumer goods. But we have found that if you understand how a retail business works globally, you can look at a local operator and decide whether they have the right stuff to succeed in their own market. It is a global/local approach.'
First State has about US$56.5 billion in funds under management, much of which was raised in the Australian market.
Mr Leary said First State did not attempt to position its portfolios ahead of an expected macro-economic event. 'We don't believe we have the ability to do that. What we believe we have the ability to do is understand what drives an industry and particular companies within that industry and how that relates to their performance in the stock market. In a nutshell, that is how we look at the world. Our country weightings are very much driven by where we are seeing interesting stock ideas.'