Australian Unity has announced the creation of a new Asian equities boutique fund manager, Seres Asset Management, which is a joint venture between Australian Unity Investments (AUI) and the key investment principals, Mr Evan Erlanson and Dr Ken Lu.
Mr Erlanson will be Seres’ chief investment officer and has over 13 years of Asian investment experience with Goldman Sachs in Singapore and most recently with Bear Stearns Asia in Hong Kong. Dr Lu, who will be senior portfolio manager, has previously worked as a fund manager and also has Asian equities research experience with JP Morgan and Credit Suisse.
Seres is based and registered in Hong Kong, and will adopt an active, benchmark-unaware approach in Asian equities in order to achieve investment returns and performance regardless of the market cycle.
Mr David Bryant, head of AUI, said that the business had been interested in adding Asian equities opportunities to AUI’s range of investment products for some time.
“We have seen Asian equities do very well recently and we believe that this is a long-term trend which Australian investors should be building into their portfolios.
“Australia’s economic recovery is closely linked to growth in Asia, particularly China, and we believe that there are outstanding opportunities in this region for investors. The Asian region currently accounts for one quarter of the world’s GDP yet remains under-serviced for investors – in Australia not much more than one percent of all retail investment is allocated to Asian equities compared to well over 20 percent for Australian equities*.
“Evan and Ken have many years’ experience living in Asia and working in Asian equities markets, and we believe they are ideally experienced and qualified to deliver strong investment performance for investors. Their style and approach is well suited to our own positioning of being a differentiated manager that delivers superior performance, which has already proven extremely successful with our other joint venture partners,” Mr Bryant said.
Seres will look at equity opportunities across the Asian region with an initial focus on Greater China, Korea and Singapore. This will be expanded as market conditions evolve to include other countries in the region such as India. The first Seres Asian equities fund is expected to be launched in Australia at the beginning of 2010 and initially will only be available to Australian investors.
Mr Erlanson says that Seres will take a bottom-up stock selection approach overlaid with macro-economic views to determine country and sector allocations.
“Our investment philosophy will be relatively unconstrained in regard to country and sector allocation, with stock-picking managed in line with a high conviction approach, allied with a strict risk management process.”
Through the joint venture arrangement, AUI will provide a range of support services as well as distributing Seres’ products in Australia to both the institutional and retail markets.
Seres is the fifth joint venture business formed by AUI, following Acorn Capital (Australian equities microcaps), Vianova Asset Management (fixed interest), Platypus Asset Management (Australian equities) and Wingate Asset Management (international equities). This is in addition to its two wholly owned asset management businesses in property and mortgage funds, and an investment bonds business, operating as Lifeplan, which is the market leader in Australia.
Australian Unity Investments is the funds management arm of financial services, health and retirement living services provider Australian Unity. It has over $7.6 billion in funds under management (as at 31 August 2009). Its investment approach is to use its established in-house expertise in property and mortgages while also forming joint ventures and strategic alliances with other organisations with specialist expertise.
-oOo-
For more information please contact:
Mr David Bryant
Phone: 0412 008 184
Email: dbryant@australianunity.com.au
*According to Plan for Life data as at 30 June 2009.