Asian Smaller Companies Strategy

Our strategy aims to exploit the return potential of smaller companies across Asia. It builds upon our existing equity program where we have been successfully investing in Asian small and mid-sized companies for over 20 years.

Over a longer term, Far East-ex-Japan small and mid-cap names have outperformed their larger counterparts. We aim to find “tomorrow’s leaders today”, in what we believe to be one of the world’s fastest growing economic regions

To date our approach has delivered strong results and has withstood several economic cycles and exhibited both durability and consistency. 

Background to Investing

In our experience, we have found companies with smaller market capitalisations to be under-researched and largely ignored by investment analysts. This presents opportunities to exploit inherent inefficiencies in pricing, thus setting the stage of potentially superior equity returns.

Research Driven Approach

We research and identify names that have the ability to outperform their smaller and larger counterparts through superior technology or efficiency, or an inherently flexible structure which pushes them towards faster organic returns for shareholders.

Often the capital structure is dominated by large shareholders; usually the founders who are dynamic, returns hungry and hold significant interests in their own businesses. This presents a beneficial alignment of interests.

Finally, at times when corporate balance sheets are healthy, we see many of the smaller companies in the region present themselves as potential merger or acquisition targets.

Pooled Fund Availability

The Nomura Asian Smaller Companies Fund within our Dublin-based UCITS umbrella offering investors the opportunity to invest in this strategy within a pooled structure is now available.

We aim to outperform the benchmark MSCI AC Far East ex-Japan Small Cap Index by 3% - 5% p.a. with an associated risk level of 6% - 8% p.a.