Following the conversion from Baring Pacific, this fund’s investment objective
now mainly focuses on the South East Asian markets and aims to provide long-term capital growth by investing primarily in the equity markets of the ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) region. The conversion is the result of growing demand from investors for a vehicle focusing on the opportunities available in some of the smaller, faster growing markets in Asia.

Approximately 80 per cent of the fund invests in the ‘core’ ASEAN markets (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines), ten per cent will be invested in the up-and-coming frontier markets (India, Vietnam and Sri Lanka), and the remaining ten per cent will have exposure to greater China (Hong Kong and Taiwan).

Minimum investment: £2,500
Initial charge: 5 per cent
Annual management fee: 1.25 per cent
Contact: www.baring-asset.com

Andrew Merricks says:
This conversion from the Barings Pacific Fund to the Barings ASEAN Frontiers Fund looks very interesting.  

The recent stock market crashes have shown that, contrary to some commentators’ views, there has been no immediate decoupling from the US market and emerging economies such as the Asian, Eastern European and Latin American regions, each of which have suffered even bigger falls than the more developed markets.  

However, this may mask the fact that in the ASEAN region in particular, the individual economies are in quite good shape for coming out of the downturn more effectively than their debt-laden, larger counterparts.   

Recovery will be all about cash. Having already been through a major crisis in 1997, not dissimilar to the one that the West is experiencing now, the restructured government and corporate balance sheets and attractive current account positions will see, in my opinion, the move in influence from West to East accelerate in the near term.

Some of the ASEAN countries could benefit from capital flows seeking non-nationalised banking institutions and it is probably no coincidence that HSBC, for example, has not seen the need to join with its rivals in holding the begging bowl out for taxpayers’ hard-earned cash.

Barings has always had a strong reputation for management of ‘emerging’ economy funds, and the fact that this fund is focusing on the ‘next generation’ Asian countries riding China’s wave of success, using a concentrated portfolio of between 40 and 50 stocks, leads me to highly rate this fund.

4.5 Stars