Fund of the week: trust to Luk

published 18 September 2007

It's telling that when Henrietta Luk left her last job as manager and co-founder of Eva Asset Management, "some 90% of her clients followed" her into Melchior, says Mark Dampier in The Independent. And "they must be glad they did; the Asian Opportunities Fund has performed superbly". Since launching in April 2005, it's returned 160%, against 95.9% for its benchmark index, and this year alone it's up 36% so far.

Luk makes all her investment decisions from the company's base in Hong Kong. As of 31 July, 27.8% of the fund was invested there, and a further 45.8% in Taiwan. "Luk believes this is a one-off opportunity to see significant gains in Asia," says Liz Philips in the Daily Mail. The Chinese government has relaxed rules on investing overseas, and for the first time ever, some Chinese citizens will be allowed to invest in stockmarkets other than Shanghai's. This should provide an extra lift for markets in the region, she believes.

With this in mind, she has positioned the portfolio towards growth stocks, such as semiconductor manufacturers Elan Microelectronics Corp and Taiwanese LCD TV maker Amtran. The latter recently saw its shares jump 38% on the back of strong results in July, as the company saw its Vizio brand leap from seventh to second place in the US market. With those sorts of stock-picking skills, combined with "19 years of experience" in fund management, Luk is "just the sort of manager I want running my money", says Dampier.