Fund of the week: a back-to-basics approach to Asia

‘Buy and hold’ is hardly the most sophisticated investment strategy. But it’s proved successful for Peter Hames's Aberdeen Asia Pacific and Japan fund.

Buy and hold' is hardly the most sophisticated investment strategy. But it's proved a successful approach for Peter Hames and the team of analysts who manage the Aberdeen Asia Pacific and Japan fund. The fund has returned 97% over the past five years, against 83.7% for the FTSE Asia Pacific fund.

Based in Singapore since 1992, Hames looks "for good, well-run, easy-to-understand companies that have strong fundamentals and good long-term prospects, trading at sensible prices", he tells Investment Adviser. Hames aims to buy companies that are trading at a discount to their peers, using simple ratios, such as price to earnings. Turnover of stocks in the fund is also very low at 10%-20% a year. "Our view is very long term, with the portfolio hardly changing from day to day." That means that the fund does not incur high levels of broker fees for trading shares.

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