Investing in high growth Asian frontier economies., Asia Frontier Capital

Scott Osheroff

Investing in high growth Asian frontier economies.

Asia Frontier Capital

Asia Frontier Capital Ltd. is a pioneering fund management company based in Hong Kong that specializes in investing in high growth Asian frontier economies by managing the AFC Asia Frontier Fund , AFC Iraq Fund and the AFC Vietnam Fund.

The AFC Asia Frontier Fund invests in public equities of Asian frontier countries that are seeing increasing consumption due to favorable demographic trends, rising incomes and high GDP growth. The fund invests in listed equities of companies that have their principal business activities in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Iraq, Laos, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. The AFC Asia Frontier Fund is positioned to take advantage of the continuing economic shifts in these countries and offers high returns combined with significant diversification opportunities. This fund is directed by the founder and CEO of Asia Frontier Capital, Thomas Hugger, who has been investing in frontier markets across Asia and Africa for more than 20 years.

The AFC Iraq Fund was launched on the 26th June 2015 and aims to achieve long-term capital appreciation for investors by capturing value and growth potential in the post conflict high-growth & resource rich Iraq market. The fund emphasises long term investment horizon to truly capture the opportunity in Iraq. The fund's investable universe consists of locally listed companies that have their principal business activities in Iraq as well as foreign listed companies that have the majority of the business in Iraq as a whole including the prosperous Kurdish Region of Iraq (KRI). The AFC Iraq Fund offers access to investments in post conflict recovery potential of Iraq, including the KRI, and/or stability in its territory. The AFC Iraq Fund is managed by Asia Frontier Capital (Iraq) Limited, Cayman Islands under the executive leadership team of Thomas Hugger (CEO & Fund Manager) and Ahmed Tabaqchali (CIO) who have more than 47 years of investment experience as well as an extensive background covering global, emerging, frontier and MENA markets.

The AFC Vietnam Fund invests exclusively in listed Vietnamese equities to capture value in growth companies with a focus on the small to medium size companies. This market segment offers a unique investment opportunity as the valuation gap between large- and small-cap stocks in Vietnam is presently much wider than in comparable neighboring markets and the valuations are significantly depressed versus their regional peers. The fund adopts a fundamental-quantitative approach and employs an in-house earnings model to identify attractive companies where we see high growth opportunities. In conjunction with targeting the maximum upside potential the portfolio has been structured to mitigate corporate government and liquidity risks. The fund invests in a diversified portfolio of 70-90 attractively valued companies to carefully control concentration risk.  This approach allows the fund to sell, or buy, positions without having a significant market impact. The fund is directed under the executive leadership of Thomas Hugger and Andreas Vogelsanger who have more than 50 years combined experience managing investments in frontier markets, Asia and around the world.

For more information about the fund, management team and investment strategy please contact us at info@asiafrontiercapital.com.

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

<p>Though 2017 has started on an uncertain note surrounding the policies of the new US President, our conviction in the long-term story of Asian frontier markets is not diminished as these countries have very favourable demographics backed by rising disposable incomes, are going through political reform, and are benefitting from increased foreign investment due to lower wages relative to China. Further, companies in the Asian frontier markets are still relatively under-researched relative to larger emerging markets and therefore offer convincing long term opportunities.</p>

Though 2017 has started on an uncertain note surrounding the policies of the new US President, our conviction in the long-term story of Asian frontier markets is not diminished as these countries have very favourable demographics backed by rising disposable incomes, are going through political reform, and are benefitting from increased foreign investment due to lower wages relative to China. Further, companies in the Asian frontier markets are still relatively under-researched relative to larger emerging markets and therefore offer convincing long term opportunities.

AFC Asia Frontier Fund – 2016 Review and 2017 Outlook

Asean-focused. Ex-Head of Thai Research

Athaporn Arayasantiparb, CFA

<p>Today, the military government proclaimed 2017 as Thailand's Year of Reform and Reconciliation. Now, reform is easy to understand. They have more than 130 points to detail that, and you've already seen it in some of the projects mentioned in <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/insights/ck-vs-stec-the-da-vinci-code-for-thai-contractors" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="insights:5164">CK Vs STEC: The Da Vinci Code for Thai Contractors</a>, but reconciliation is a different matter. Political harmony and reconciliation between various political factions is a recurring theme in Thailand, only because it is so hard (yet pretty important) to…</p>

Today, the military government proclaimed 2017 as Thailand's Year of Reform and Reconciliation. Now, reform is easy to understand. They have more than 130 points to detail that, and you've already seen it in some of the projects mentioned in CK Vs STEC: The Da Vinci Code for Thai Contractors, but reconciliation is a different matter. Political harmony and reconciliation between various political factions is a recurring theme in Thailand, only because it is so hard (yet pretty important) to…

Economist, Centennial Asia Advisors

Jason Tan

Economist

Centennial Asia Advisors

At Centennial Asia Advisors, we tell it like it is. We have no vested interests, no need for a China wall, and no reason to skew our outlook any other way. With over 30 years experience covering Asia’s political economy, you can be sure our conclusions and analyses are based on the unadulterated facts. Through years of fine-tuning our research methodologies, we deliver a quality of macroeconomic analysis few other houses can match.

Centennial Asia Advisors is an independent research and advisory firm that works with governments, multilateral institutions, financial firms and leading MNCs.

Economic Policy and Strategic Advisors

Macroeconomics

<p><strong>Destabilising capital flows push central banks into defensive mode:</strong></p><ul>
<li>
<strong>Bank Negara intervened in Nov 16 to restrict the non-deliverable forwards (NDF) market. </strong>BNM’s moves to restrict the NDF market have created uncertainty among portfolio investors, inclining them to sharply reduce their allocation of funds to Malaysia.</li>
<li>
<strong>The PBOC has undertaken a slew of measures to stem outflows</strong>, including placing higher scrutiny on citizen’s conversion quotas and stricter requirements for banks reporting…</li>
</ul>

Destabilising capital flows push central banks into defensive mode:

Bank Negara intervened in Nov 16 to restrict the non-deliverable forwards (NDF) market. BNM’s moves to restrict the NDF market have created uncertainty among portfolio investors, inclining them to sharply reduce their allocation of funds to Malaysia.

The PBOC has undertaken a slew of measures to stem outflows, including placing higher scrutiny on citizen’s conversion quotas and stricter requirements for banks reporting…


Asian Central Banks: Rising Regulatory Risks for Investors

Doing bespoke work since 2002....., Custom Products Group

Patrick Hansen

Doing bespoke work since 2002.....

Custom Products Group

Custom Products was started 14 years ago at Lehman Brothers by current co-founder Patrick Hansen, CFA. After 3 years at Lehman, Patrick moved the team to Macquarie Securities where Simon Rigney (co-founder) joined. 3 years ago we took Custom Products independent. 

Our core strength can be summed up three words. 1- Customization - we have very little off the shelf products and most work is done on a one on one bespoke basis. 2- Speed - We pride ourselves in our ability to get requests back to the client very quickly. 3- Confidentiality - We do not redistribute. There is no grace period where we wait a week and then mass blast. Any request stops with that client.

<p>Here is the Asian ex-Japan Hated by the Street screen. The goal of the Hated by the Street screen is to identify names where the stock price has been beaten up and the analysts have given up. However, the valuations have gotten to levels worth looking at. We measure the Street's Love / Hate of a stock by calculating the % of BUY recommendations to total recommendations. Below we have screened for names in Asia ex-Japan with</p><div class="sk-insight-content__block"><ol><li>% of BUY Recommendations below 30%.</li><li>PBR is currently 20% below the 7-year historical median PBR</li><li>Current PBR is less than 2x.</li><li>1-year price performance is below negative 10%.</li><li>More than 5 Analysts currently cover the name. </li></ol></div>

Here is the Asian ex-Japan Hated by the Street screen. The goal of the Hated by the Street screen is to identify names where the stock price has been beaten up and the analysts have given up. However, the valuations have gotten to levels worth looking at. We measure the Street's Love / Hate of a stock by calculating the % of BUY recommendations to total recommendations. Below we have screened for names in Asia ex-Japan with% of BUY Recommendations below 30%.PBR is currently 20% below the 7-year historical median PBRCurrent PBR is less than 2x.1-year price performance is below negative 10%.More than 5 Analysts currently cover the name. 

Deep Value and Hated by the Street in Asia....

Asia Economist and CEO, Centennial Asia Advisors

Manu Bhaskaran

Asia Economist and CEO

<p>In light of the global scenarios sketched out in the forked insight, we analyse the implications of these global drivers and domestic forces on Asia in Tables 1-3 below.</p><p><strong>Table 1: Large economies - China, India and Indonesia</strong></p><table class="table table-striped">
<thead>
<tr>
<td rowspan="2"><strong>DRIVER</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;"><strong>China</strong></td>
<td style="text-align: center;"><h2>India</h2></td>
<td style="text-align: center;"><h2>Indonesia</h2></td>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr><td colspan="4"><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>GLOBAL DRIVERS</strong></p></td></tr>
<tr>
<td><h2>G3 recovery - global demand to rise</h2></td>
<td><p><strong>High gearing</strong>: China will be an outsized winner helped by its large world export share and its competitiveness.</p></td>
<td><p><strong>Low gearing</strong>: India will benefit less than its Asian peers given its low export share.</p></td>
<td><p>…</p></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

In light of the global scenarios sketched out in the forked insight, we analyse the implications of these global drivers and domestic forces on Asia in Tables 1-3 below.Table 1: Large economies - China, India and Indonesia


DRIVER


China
India
Indonesia



GLOBAL DRIVERS

G3 recovery - global demand to rise
High gearing: China will be an outsized winner helped by its large world export share and its competitiveness.
Low gearing: India will benefit less than its Asian peers given its low export share.
…




Asia in 2017: Scenarios and Forecasts (Part II)

Thailand

iShares MSCI Thailand Capped ETF is an exchange-traded fund incorporated in the USA. The ETF seeks investment results that correspond to the performance of the MSCI Thailand IMI 25/50 Index.

iShares MSCI Thailand (THD US)

AFC Asia Frontier Fund – 2016 Review and 2017 Outlook

Though 2017 has started on an uncertain note surrounding the policies of the new US President, our conviction in the long-term story of Asian...

Asia Frontier Capital

Political Harmony in the Year of Reform

Today, the military government proclaimed 2017 as Thailand's Year of Reform and Reconciliation. Now, reform is easy to understand. They have more...