Schroder Asia Pacific annual report reveals revenue increase

Schroder Asia Pacific unveiled a significant increase in revenue in its annual report Tuesday.

The equities investor announced £4.91m net revenue after tax for the year ended September 30th, a sizeable jump from the £4.03m reported in the previous year.

The company's gearing rose from 4.4% at the beginning of the year to 5.7% by year's end.

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The net asset value of the company recorded a total return of 28.7% over the year, exceeding the benchmark of the MSCI All Countries Asia ex Japan Index which rose 15.7% over the same period.

"Regional markets made positive progress over the year under review despite some challenging global developments, particularly the continued bouts of uncertainty over the future of the euro with the focus shifting from the smaller economies of Greece and Portugal to the systemically more critical cases of Spain and Italy," the company said in a statement.

"The relative performance of the company's portfolio has been strong over the period. The main contributors were strong stock selection in Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, with lesser added value from the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia."

The results come off the back of the appointment of Rosemary Morgan as Non-Executive Director of the company in July. Morgan worked as a Japanese equity fund manager for 16 years at John Govett before joining the Institutional Client team at Fidelity, and RBS from mid 2007.

Schroder Asia Pacific was given the authority to purchase up to 14.99% of its issued shared capital for cancellation at the last annual general meeting in February 2012. However no ordinary shares were acquired by directors for the year ended September 30th.

Shares remained unchanged at 249.00p at 13:25 Tuesday.

Shareholders have been urged to attend the next annual general meeting on January 29th 2013 where a presentation will be held on prospects for Asia and the company's investment strategy.

RD