Winnersrationale

Federated Hermes has been named Asian Private Banker’s Best Fund Provider – Asia Pacific Equity for the markedly different composition and low correlation to peers of its Asia ex Japan Equity Fund.

The fund aims to achieve long-term capital appreciation by investing primarily in a portfolio of equity securities and equity-related securities issued by companies either in emerging countries in Asia excluding Japan, or deriving substantial revenues from that region. The fund’s style is contrarian and it selects out-of-favour stocks with a higher likelihood of better future performance and companies that are attractively priced relative to the quality of the underlying businesses.

Believing that consistent short-term outperformance and long-term outperformance are goals that are mutually inconsistent for risky assets, the investment team seeks long-term outperformance, rather than targeting consistency and tolerating volatility in relative and absolute performance.

The most important characteristic the team looks for potential investments is an asymmetric risk-return profile, which gives the fund a strong tendency to outperform in falling markets. The results of this approach to investing are evident, with the Federated Hermes Asia ex Japan Equity Fund outperforming its benchmark MSCI AC Asia ex Japan IMI Net on a one-year, three-year, five-year and since inception basis. And while the fund delivered negative returns in 2022, it outperformed a sample of nine of ten industry peers with the same product and the same benchmark.

In addition, the Asia ex Japan Equity Fund scores high in terms of client service on account of having a dedicated sales team in place in Singapore dedicated solely to global and regional private banks in Asia.

For these reasons, Federated Hermes wins Best Fund Provider – Asia Pacific Equity in Asian Private Banker’s 2023 Asset Management Awards for Excellence.