Managing trade war uncertainty and finding opportunities in Asia with Mark Hammonds
Mark Hammonds, fund manager of Elite Rated Guinness Asian Equity Income fund, walks us through the...
Guinness Asian Equity Income
Guinness Asian Equity Income fund invests in companies across the whole Asia Pacific region, including Australia. The portfolio is concentrated at just 36 equally-weighted stocks, and has a one-in, one-out policy, looking for a combination of capital and dividend growth.
Our opinion
This fund has two stand out characteristics – the well defined and disciplined process, and the equally-weighted stocks. Ed and Mark use their screening tools to great effect, looking for specific characteristics and taking the unusual step of not analysing dividend potential until the final stage of their process. We like their approach of focusing on companies that can sustainably grow their dividend into the future and the fact that the portfolio looks very different from the benchmark and their peers.
Company description
Founded in 2003, Guinness Asset Management Ltd is part of the Guinness group of investment management companies, founded by Tim Guinness. Investment research and analysis is all compiled in-house and none of its funds are constrained by any benchmarks. The investment team is based in London, and the company is entirely management/employee-owned.
Fund manager
Edmund Harriss and Mark Hammonds work as co-managers. Edmund has been running money in Asian funds since 1994 and has worked in both London & Hong Kong. He graduated from Christ Church, Oxford, with a Masters in Management Studies and has a Batchelor's degree in History from the University of York. Mark joined the firm in September 2012. He trained as a Chartered Accountant, and previously worked at Ernst & Young. As well as being a CFA charterholder, he graduated from Corpus Christi, Cambridge, with a first class degree in Management Studies.
If I buy a car, I look under the bonnet to see if it has a sound engine. I do the same with stocks: the engine being a strong balance sheet which will drive returns year after year, over and above what it needs for reinvestment, and which can then be distributed as dividends.
Edmund HarrissFund manager
Investment process
The managers screen their universe of circa 7000 companies for specific characteristics, using Guinness' own proprietary modelling systems. They look for companies making a real return on investment of at least 8% for each of the past eight years. Only around 7% of Asian listed companies get through this screen and the managers then reduce their universe further by excluding highly indebted companies and those less than $500 million in size. That leaves them with around 300 companies to research more thoroughly, with in depth modelling of the businesses cash flow, capital budgeting and – least but by no means least – potential for dividend growth.
The resulting portfolio consists of 36 equally weighted companies. This equal weighting, together with their one-in, one-out policy means there isn’t a long tail of smaller holdings, so each stock can make a meaningful contribution to performance. The holdings are rebalanced periodically to retain the equal weightings and are continually assessed to see if there are better opportunities, although turnover is relatively low (holdings are generally kept in the portfolio for three to five years).
Risk
The screening process for this fund will filter for risk factors. The initial screen finds companies that have eight years of consistent cash generation, which gives a statistical likelihood of persistence. It will therefore filter out a lot of cyclical companies like energy and materials names. Sector and country exposure is considered at a portfolio level with a diverse mix targeted. The portfolio's exposure is monitored regularly. A second filter removes higher risk smaller companies, as well as companies that are more indebted. The fund is benchmark agnostic and highly concentrated, meaning it has stock-specific risk.
Related content
Chinese New Year: are the investment stars aligned in 2019?
5 February 2019 marks the start of the Chinese Year of the Pig and, possibly, a prosperous 12...
Beast from the East: will Asian equities roar again in 2019?
Last year was not a good one for Far Eastern equities. As trade-wars escalated between the US and...
The information, data, analyses, and opinions contained herein (1) include the proprietary information of FundCalibre, (2) may not be copied or redistributed without prior permission, (3) do not constitute investment advice offered by FundCalibre, (4) are provided solely for informational purposes and therefore are not an offer to buy or sell a fund, and (5) are not warranted to be correct, complete, or accurate. FundCalibre shall not be responsible for any trading decisions, damages, or other losses resulting from, or related to, this information, data, analyses, or opinions or their use. The Elite Fund rating is subjective in nature and reflects FundCalibre’s current expectations of future events/behaviour as they relate to a particular fund. Because such events/behaviour may turn out to be different than expected, FundCalibre does not guarantee that a fund will perform in line with its FundCalibre benchmark. Likewise, the Elite Fund rating should not be seen as any sort of guarantee or assessment of the creditworthiness of a fund nor of its underlying securities and should not be used as the sole basis for making any investment decision. FundCalibre disclaims any responsibility for trading decisions, damages or other losses resulting from any use of the Elite Fund rating. All performance data, as well as fund size, OCF, AMC, annual income (historic), share price discount or premium, is sourced directly from FE Analytics, and will change periodically.