Sweden’s Tundra launches Vietnam fund
Swedish frontier and emerging markets specialist Tundra is launching a Vietnam fund - the first such actively managed product from any Scandinavian provider, the manager says.
Swedish frontier and emerging markets specialist Tundra is launching a Vietnam fund – the first such actively managed product from any Scandinavian provider, the manager says.
The Tundra Vietnam fund will be the manager’s fourth frontier markets fund, and the first single country fund since the Tundra Pakistan fund was launched in October 2011.
Subscriptions are opened from 29 April and the fund launches on 6 May, being managed from Stockholm with analysis support from Tundra’s recently opened office in Karachi, Pakistan.
Reasons cited for the launch include continued strong growth in sectors such as tourism – with visitor numbers to Vietnam up 11% to 7.5 million in 2013.
The country is said to be continuing a recovery from the property crisis of 2008, which hit the banking sector, while continued improvements in loan portfolios of banks will improve access to credit.
Tundra also cites an increasing shift in manufacturing moving to Vietnam from countries such as China. Samsung Electronics estimates that 40% of its phones will be made in the country by 2015.
Meanwhile, there are onging proposals to open up the country’s equity market to more foreign ownership.
“We believe in Vietnam and the country’s opportunities to grow and obtain an ever bigger middle class. This is the world’s 13th biggest country with 90 million people of whom about 40% are under the age of 25,” said Mattias Martinsson, deputy CEO and CIO at Tundra who will manage the new fund.
“The manufacturing industry is shifting to Vietnam because of lower production costs and an attractive investment climate. Vietnam is a reminder of what China looked like 20 years ago,” he added.
This is a high risk strategy – rated 7/7 according to the KIID – and is more suitable for investors with long term investment horizons of, say, 10 years.
