Asia ex-Japan Equity
Paying the right price relative to quality
Reasons to invest
Price-to-quality
Contrarian
Asymmetric payoff
ESG integration
Overview
We seek an asymmetric return profile, and pay particular attention to the risk of downside in absolute terms
Why Asia ex-Japan Equity?
We are contrarian investors. Often the stocks we buy are attractively priced because news flow has recently been negative and the stocks have underperformed. We stand alone in terms of style versus our top 10 peers by assets under management. As a result, we have a very low correlation with the rest of the fund market.2
2 Source: Morningstar, data as of end of December 2022. Coloured dots represent styles of peers as determined by Morningstar. Peer group selected based on top 10 AUM funds in the Asia ex-Japan Morningstar category.
We aim to invest so that the upside/downside of a position is asymmetric: the upside far outweighing the potential downside. Our larger positions tend to be those with lower risk – we define risk as the permanent loss of capital rather than volatility or divergence from the benchmark.
How we invest
In our search for companies trading at low prices relative to quality, we apply our proprietary valuation models. We emphasise price-to-book for price and five-year average return-on-assets as a proxy for quality. We then analyse the company in depth, scrutinising company statements and speaking with management. The size of each position is informed by our assessment of the risk of loss – the smaller the absolute downside and the greater the asymmetry, the greater the position we are likely to take.
Throughout the investment process, we manage risk at the stock and portfolio level. At the stock level (by far the more important area where we manage risk), we focus on the price-to-value proposition and the risk of permanent loss: we assess leverage, profitability, consistency of earnings and free-cash-flow generation. At the portfolio level, we use various risk management models and analyses to identify and help assess aggregate portfolio risks.
Our investment team uses Federated Hermes’ resources to integrate ESG into our investment decision making process. Team members directly engage with companies on ESG issues. We also draw on the resources of EOS at Federated Hermes, our leading stewardship team, and collaborate with them on engagements with companies.
Investment philosophy
We believe alpha can best be generated by bottom-up analysis: buying companies that are attractively priced relative to their quality.
Investment process
We apply a liquidity and size screen, and filter for companies trading cheaper than expected relative to their quality, reducing the universe of 18,000 stocks down to around 250.
We study financial statements, write reports and project financials. We hold discussions with management, and incorporate ESG analysis. This process filters down our investable companies to circa 100 stocks.
We select 45-60 mispriced stocks, sizing the positions by considering risk. We have an 18-24-month average holding period. We sell when a stock reaches its intrinsic value, our assessment changes or we find a better idea.
Team
Jonathan Pines, CFA
Lead Portfolio Manager, Asia ex-Japan, Federated Hermes Limited
Sandy Pei, CFA
Deputy Portfolio Manager, Asia ex-Japan, Federated Hermes Limited
Product information
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