First State to soft-close Lau and Asante funds
First State is to soft-close Martin Lau's Greater China Growth fund as well as four other emerging markets offerings.
First State is to soft-close Martin Lau’s Greater China Growth fund as well as four other emerging markets offerings.
The group said it had taken the decision to soft-close the £624m Greater China Growth fund – one of the top performing China funds in the marketplace – as well as a range of other offerings.
The group has also soft closed the First State Asia Pacific Sustainability, First State Indian Subcontinent, First State Global Emerging Markets Sustainability, and First State Latin America fund, run by Jonathan Asante.
Gary Withers, regional managing director for EMEA at First State, said: ‘Over the past couple of years, inflows into our specialist Asia Pacific and Global Emerging Market (GEM) funds have grown rapidly, reflecting their exceptional long term investment performance.
“Having monitored the situation carefully, we believe that we are nearing the point beyond which capacity issues could start affecting performance of these funds and, more specifically, restrict their ability to invest in smaller companies. So that we can continue to invest efficiently for the benefit of our existing investors and stay ‘true to label’, we have decided to soft-close some of our Asia Pacific and GEM funds.’
The soft-closures will kick in from January next year.
A version of this article first appeared on Investment Week.
