Aberdeen Asset Management will this month launch a fund investing in Chinese equities, making use of its currency quota awarded by Beijing last year.
The Aberdeen Global – China A Share Equity Fund will be available from March 16 and will be marketed to investors in Singapore and Hong Kong, with a minimum investment of $200,000 (€188,100). Other share classes will be on offer for European-based investors, with a higher minimum of $1 million initial investment.
Domiciled in Luxembourg, the fund will make use of Aberdeen’s 600 million renminbi (€91.4 million) qualified foreign institutional investor (RQFII) licence, which was granted to the group’s Asian branch late last year.
The fund will be run by Aberdeen’s Asian equities team in Hong Kong and Singapore and will only invest in 25-30 companies out of a universe of 2,000. The team seeks high quality companies and has a bias towards consumer, healthcare and travel businesses.
Chinese equities measured by the MSCI China A Index rose 46.89% last year.
Nicholas Yeo, head of Chinese equities at Aberdeen, says China is going through a complex adjustment period owing to a legacy of bad debts and fraud.
“With this fund we are not saying now is the right time to buy the market, but asking investors to consider China as a long-term proposition,” he says.
In a separate development, the Aberdeen Property Trust has completed what it says is “one of the largest ever” single purchases of existing stock in the private rental sector in the UK.
The firm bought a 26-storey building in Stratford High Street, London, for around £60 million (€84.8 million). Aberdeen plans to grow its residential assets in the UK by £500 million over the next five years.
Stratford has seen major redevelopment since it was selected to host the 2012 Olympic Games.
Invesco Real Estate recently suggested that UK institutional investors are significantly underinvested in the private rented sector.
Aberdeen had around £20 billion in real estate assets under management globally at the end of 2014.
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