Winners rationale

Very few possess the track record of Capital Group’s New Perspective strategy — with its resilient investment philosophy that has been through multiple market cycles with resounding success. This time-tested approach particularly shone through during the market sell-off in early 2020 and the subsequent recovery.

The group makes this strategy available to Asian investors as a Luxembourg-domiciled fund (UCITS): Capital Group New Perspective Fund (LUX), which is managed by the same team and follows the same investment approach as the strategy. The primary objective of the New Perspective Fund (LUX) is to achieve long-term growth of capital by investing in common stocks of companies located around the world.

The fund’s ability to consistently deliver strong results was even more pronounced on a year-to-date basis as at 31 August 2020. Against the unsettled markets of 2020, the fund returned +18.8% before fees, generating an excess return of more than +14% compared with the index, which rose +4.7% over the same period. The fund returned +17.5%, net of highest management fees and expenses for the B share class.

It was able to consistently deliver on those objectives by focusing on opportunities driven by changes in global trade patterns as well as economic and political relationships. The focus on ‘change’ was particularly valuable in an era of digital disruption. Through rigorous, bottom-up research, the Capital Group identified strong multinationals that stand to benefit from global secular change. This was made possible by the investment team’s flexibility to pursue opportunities anywhere in the world — rather than having a traditional domicile focus. Its ‘new geography’ approach concentrates on revenue exposure. Though this may lead to geographical differences — when compared with the benchmark MSCI ACWI index — it enabled portfolio managers to search from a more diverse pool of strong multinationals that offer growth and resilience.

Notable investments included e-commerce platform provider Shopify and China-based biotechnology specialist BeiGene. Further evidence of the fund’s success in identifying the champions of tomorrow was its investment in on-demand media streaming giant Netflix. This company has been held since the fund first launched in 2015, when its market cap was approximately US$49 billion as at 31 December 2014. Netflix’s market cap was almost US$230 billion as at January 6, 2021. The fund has remained invested in the company throughout this period and it was a top-10 position in the portfolio as at 31 August 2020.

That foresight helped the Capital Group stand out from its peers and retain its title.

For its ability to pick stocks far ahead-of-the-curve and a flexible investment philosophy, Capital Group has been selected as Asian Private Banker’s Best Fund Provider – Global Equity.