Questor on Schroder Asia Total Return – Ignore the markets and disregard the indices, says this stocks winner
With an 80pc outperformance rate in the past 10 years, there’s method to the madness
Past Questor columns have recommended Schroder AsiaPacific Fund to readers, most recently in February 2023. However, Schroders has another investment trust focused on Asia – and this one has a better long term track record.
The Asia Pacific ex Japan region is a mixed bag. China and Hong Kong account for over a quarter of the market cap of the region’s stock markets. For some years now, an extended period of lacklustre Chinese growth – punctuated by stimulus packages that blaze brightly and then fade – has weighed on the region. An investment in a product that tracked the MSCI All Countries Asia Pacific ex Japan Index would have lost you money over the past three years.
The managers of Schroder Asian Total Return have a simple solution to this problem: they ignore markets. Disregarding benchmark indices when constructing their portfolio and focusing on identifying stocks with low downside risk, the aim is to make absolute returns of about 8-9pc per annum rather than generating outperformance of a benchmark.
King Fuei Lee, based in Singapore, and Robin Parbrook, based in London, have worked together for over 25 years and have had responsibility for the trust’s portfolio since March 2013. Under their stewardship… read more here