
Invesco Asian

Manager William Lam invests primarily in the shares of companies in Asia and Australasia (excluding Japan) in this concentrated, value-orientated fund. He looks for companies where the market is underestimating earnings growth and stocks are chosen with a three-year investment horizon, to give the share price time to appreciate to a level he believes to be fair value.
Please note, Invesco is the new name for Invesco Perpetual effective October 2018.
Our Opinion
Fund Manager
Fund Manager

William Lam, Lead Manager William is Co-Head of the Henley-based Asian & Emerging Markets Equity team at Invesco, where he manages or co-manages several Asian portfolios, including the Invesco Asian (UK) fund. He started his investment career in 2001 at Orbis Investment Advisory as a global investment analyst before joining Invesco’s Asian Equities team in 2006. William holds a first-class MA in Psychology and Philosophy from Oxford University, an MSc in Music Technology from York University, and is a qualified chartered accountant and CFA Charterholder.
Fund Performance
Risk
Company Description
Talking Factsheet
Quote from the Fund Manager
A share price is just the collective view of hundreds of human beings, who can often be unimaginative, over-emotional, and too short-termist.

William Lam
Lead Manager
Investment process
The process is designed to differentiate between good companies and good investments – the two are not always the same. William looks for those companies whose share prices are substantially below his estimate of fair value. He does this using two steps. The first is calculating the expected growth in earnings, based on historic growth rates, market trends, a company’s competitive advantage and the quality of their management. This is then combined with the team's view of a fair valuation based on the strength of the balance sheet, cash flow and future growth (in absolute terms and versus the company's own history). This process will narrow the universe down to 50-70 holdings for Invesco Asian, with a short-list of 30 reserve candidates that can be added should valuations allow. The process tends to lead the team to focus on unloved areas of the market, as this is where many undervalued companies can be found.
Risk
Risk analysis is built in throughout the process. When stocks are analysed, their liquidity (ability to buy and sell shares quickly) and downside protection is factored in to any valuation metric. There are further risk controls at the portfolio construction level. Invesco Asian is assessed for any specific country or sector bias and new names will need to diversify away from any bias identified. Invesco Asian is also monitored by a dedicated risk team. There is a 'CIO Challenge' function meaning William can be queried on the risk of any one of his holdings at any point.
ESG
ESG - Integrated
This fund’s ESG considerations are built into the valuation process. However, William does not start by excluding those with poor track records, as he wants to consider all potential stocks before passing judgement. He believes it is important to understand the size and scale of potential ESG issues a firm faces, and whether this will have an impact on the company or its share price. When these are identified, Invesco will engage with companies directly, either through its dedicated in-house ESG team, or directly via the fund manager or analysts, depending on the complexity. All analysts and fund managers systematically integrate ESG into the stock analysis process using an in-house ratings tool. This has implications for the estimation of future earnings for the firm, potential dividends, as well as future valuation potential. Will also looks at firms improving their ESG profiles as a source of returns, meaning the fund may hold names that may seem unappealing from an arm’s length perspective, but are looking to improve their credentials which should feed through to better share price performance as these improvements are recognised by the market.