The funds affected are Martin Lau’s £625m Greater China Growth Fund as well as Jonathan Asante’s First State Asia Pacific Sustainability, Indian Subcontinent, Global Emerging Markets Sustainability and Latin America funds.
For new money, an initial charge is now compulsory, however regular investors who maintain the level of their existing contributions will not be affected.
First State will also credit all initial charges on these specialist funds to the relevant funds themselves for a transitional period of up to 5 April, 2012, the company has confirmed.
“Having monitored the situation carefully, we believe we are nearing the point beyond which capacity issues could start affecting performance of these funds and, more specifically, restrict their ability to invest in smaller companies,” said First State regional managing director for EMEA Gary Withers. “So that we can continue to invest efficiently for the benefit of our existing investors and stay ‘true to label’, we have decided to soft-close some of our Asia Pacific and global emerging market equity funds.”
The First State Asia Pacific and Global Emerging Markets funds were also soft-closed eight years ago.
Then, the Asia Pacific Leaders and Global Emerging Markets Leaders funds were launched which do not invest in smaller companies. The two Leaders funds remain unaffected by the latest move, which will come into effect from 1 January, 2012.
