Matthews Asia Takes Aim At Entire Japanese Equity Market With New Fund

Tom Burroughes

6 May 2015

US-headquartered investment firm has launched a Japan fund to expand its Luxembourg-domiciled UCITS fund range.

The Matthews Japan Fund seeks to generate long-term capital appreciation by investing in the Japanese equity markets, holding an all-cap portfolio of firms in the country.

“Japan has been seen by many investors as a ‘large-cap value’ market over the past 15 years, but we view Japan as a long-term, core investment opportunity and, as such, we invest across the market-cap spectrum. The portfolio includes lesser-known small-cap companies with strong and sustainable growing domestic businesses relative to many large-cap peers. We also look at Japan in a regional context, paying particular attention to firms that are poised to benefit from the rising income levels in the region and that are tied into the growth of the Asian household,” Kenichi Amaki, lead manager, said.

The Matthews Japan strategy has been available to investors in the US since 1998. The UCITS fund will follow the same bottom-up, fundamental investment approach and is managed by the same lead portfolio manager, Amaki. He is supported by co-manager Taizo Ishida and the 40-member investment team at the firm.

In total, Matthews Asia oversees $30 million in client money.