In its results announcement released on Christmas Eve, JPMorgan Asian reported underperformance of the fund’s benchmark and a widening of its discount. The Board have held talks with JPMorgan and are anxious that performance improves over 2015. They will hold a continuation vote in 2016 and the statement reads as though the Board would recommend that shareholders vote against continuation if things don’t improve.
At the same time the Board has removed the performance element of the management fee.
The return on net assets was 6.0% which compares to a return on the MSCI Asia ex Japan Index of 8.1%. The dividend for the year is 2.2p.
The Ted Pulling (pictured), Sonia Yu and Jeff Roskell’s managers’ report says that the performance problem comes down to stock selection in the greater China region and Korea. Anti corruption measures impacted the fund’s holdings of casinos in Macau and the Chinese slowdown had an adverse effect on the fund’s investments in Korean heavy industrials.
JAI : JPMorgan Asian Board wants better performance