adviser only
JPM Asia Growth
This is a concentrated, high-conviction fund built off JP Morgan’s extensive research platform. Hong Kong-based managers Joanna Kwok and Mark Davids will invest in the shares of up to 60 companies of any size, primarily focusing on quality, growing businesses to generate superior capital gains to their peers and the wider market.
Our Opinion
Fund Managers
Expand
Fund Managers
Close
Joanna Kwok is a Managing Director and Portfolio Manager on the Asia Pacific Regional team within the Emerging Markets and Asia Pacific (EMAP) Equities team, based in Hong Kong. She joined the firm in 2002 as an analyst in the Hong Kong Bond team and has held her current role since 2005. Before joining the firm, Joanna worked for three years at PricewaterhouseCoopers in London, where she qualified as a chartered accountant, and spent one year as a senior associate in their banking and capital markets division in Hong Kong. She holds a B.A. (Honours) in Natural Sciences from Downing College, Cambridge University.
Mark Davids is a Managing Director, Portfolio Manager, and co-head of the Asia Pacific Regional team within the Emerging Markets and Asia Pacific (EMAP) Equities team, based in Hong Kong. He relocated from London to Tokyo in 2007 to lead the behavioural finance investment desk in Japan and moved to Hong Kong in 2009 to extend this approach across the Asia Pacific region. Mark has been with the firm since 1997, starting as a pan-European investment analyst and later becoming a senior portfolio manager in J.P. Morgan Asset Management's European Equities team. Prior to joining the firm, he worked at the European Commission. Mark holds a B.A. (Joint Honours) in History and German from the University of Manchester and an M.Sc. in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics. He is also a CFA Charterholder.
Joanna Kwok is a Managing Director and Portfolio Manager on the Asia Pacific Regional team within the Emerging Markets and Asia Pacific (EMAP) Equities team, based in Hong Kong. She joined the firm in 2002 as an analyst in the Hong Kong Bond team and has held her current role since 2005. Before joining the firm, Joanna worked for three years at PricewaterhouseCoopers in London, where she qualified as a chartered accountant, and spent one year as a senior associate in their banking and capital markets division in Hong Kong. She holds a B.A. (Honours) in Natural Sciences from Downing College, Cambridge University.
Read More
Risk
Read more
Back
Company Description
JP Morgan Asset Management is one of the largest asset and wealth managers in the world. It has more than 150 years of investment experience, providing clients with strategies and expertise that span the full spectrum of asset classes through its network of investment professionals located around the world.
Fund Performance
Close
Risk
Close
Quote from the Fund Manager
Despite all the noise in markets, the story around growth in Asia continues to centre around 4.5 billion people who live, work and consume in this fast-moving, exciting region.
Joanna Kwok
Co-Manager
Investment process
JPM Asia Growth is a high-conviction and concentrated fund, primarily focused on finding high-quality, growing companies. The portfolio is built using JP Morgan’s extensive emerging market and Asian analyst resource located across the globe. This expertise includes 38 research analysts and 27 country specialists, plus four macro and quant analysts.
All the analysts will use the same framework with which to analyse their stocks and the reports they write will be uniform to enable consistency for the fund managers. These reports will look at three key areas: economics, duration and governance. The first of these will be based on the firm’s financial statements, looking at margins, debt levels and cash generation.
Within the process, there is a 98-point checklist of yes/no questions for analysts to highlight red flags. The more there are, the more reward they need from a company. This will help the managers identify the risks of each stock and see whether there is an acceptable level of reward.
Plenty of company meetings take place – all in the mother tongue of the board to ensure nothing is ‘lost in translation’.
From this work, Joanna and Mark will build their portfolio. In total, they will have a maximum of around 60 stocks. Shares will be sold on change in investment thesis, such as industry structure change or unusual corporate governance behaviour such as capital indiscipline. The managers will also sell if a company fails to deliver expected earnings or reaches an excessive valuation.
Risk
Joanna and Mark can have a maximum active weight of +5% of a stock and can vary their country and sector weights by ±15%. This active weight, and the concentrated portfolio, means that a large bulk of the JPM Asia Growth fund will be in the top ten names. Due to fund rules, the maximum stock weight a fund can have is 10%, meaning there may be cases where Joanna and Mark are underweight stocks they like, as they are larger than 10% in the index.
ESG
ESG - Integrated
JPM considers ESG issues as integral to the investment process and will rarely invest in a company if it is involved in a controversial industry or practice. Each of the Environment, Social and Governance elements are considered when performing stock analysis, with an emphasis on corporate governance. JPM takes a three-pronged approach to ESG: Research: JPM has a 40-question ESG Checklist which has 12 questions on environment, 12 on social and 16 on governance. Additionally, its Materiality Framework identifies the five key sustainability issues that are relevant for 54 sub-industries. Companies are scored on these issues based on the analysts’ fundamental views, allowing teams to identify best-in-class companies. Engagement: Corporate engagement is conducted by JPM’s analysts and portfolio managers, in partnership with the Investment Stewardship Team, who assess how companies on the Investment Stewardship Focus list deal with and report on social and environmental risks and other issues specific to their sectors and/or industries. Portfolio construction: Conviction is considered a function of the quality of the business and understanding of the opportunity and the risks, which are informed by JPM’s Strategic Classification, Risk Profile and Materiality Framework.
The information, data, analyses, and opinions contained herein (1) include the proprietary information of FundCalibre, (2) may not be copied or redistributed without prior permission, (3) do not constitute investment advice offered by FundCalibre, (4) are provided solely for informational purposes and therefore are not an offer to buy or sell a fund, and (5) are not warranted to be correct, complete, or accurate. FundCalibre shall not be responsible for any trading decisions, damages, or other losses resulting from, or related to, this information, data, analyses, or opinions or their use. The Elite Fund rating is subjective in nature and reflects FundCalibre’s current expectations of future events/behaviour as they relate to a particular fund. Because such events/behaviour may turn out to be different than expected, FundCalibre does not guarantee that a fund will perform in line with its FundCalibre benchmark. Likewise, the Elite Fund rating should not be seen as any sort of guarantee or assessment of the creditworthiness of a fund nor of its underlying securities and should not be used as the sole basis for making any investment decision. FundCalibre disclaims any responsibility for trading decisions, damages or other losses resulting from any use of the Elite Fund rating. All performance data, as well as fund size, OCF, AMC, annual income (historic), share price discount or premium, is sourced directly from FE Analytics, and will change periodically.