Schroder AsiaPacific Fund has published its Half Year Report for the period ended 31 March 2016 The company’s net asset value produced a total return of 11.0% and the share price produced a total return of 12.1% during the six month period to 31 March 2016, compared with a total return of 11.4% for the MSCI All Countries Asia excluding Japan Index in sterling terms over the period.
The chairman says much of the return for both the market and the Company’s NAV came from a fall in the value of sterling, rather than from performance from the market.
In the underlying portfolio, positive factors included stock selection in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Indonesia, partially offset by shortfalls in India and Thailand where regulatory uncertainty and heightened competition impacted our telecom holdings. Country allocation was a negative factor due to the overweighting in India (which performed relatively poorly over the period) and underweights in Indonesia and Malaysia (which performed strongly). Gearing aided returns very modestly. Surprisingly, the statement makes no mention of the performance contributions from individual holdings.
SDP : Schroder AsiaPacific helped by Sterling weakness