Since taking over the fund on 2 October Weindling said he has turned over 50% of the stocks and now he has it “almost exactly as I want it”.
His unusual accession to lead manage the fund saw his colleague Robert Lloyd look after it for a period of days following the departure of former manager David Mitchinson from the company.
JPMorgan said this irregular situation was due to legal complexities with changing the management of the fund from Hong Kong to Tokyo.
“You cannot have a fund managed in Hong Kong with a named manager in Tokyo and the quickest the jurisdiction can be moved is one week,” explained Weindling.
While JPM awaited full regulatory approval to shift the fund, Lloyd was named as the manager, although the intention was always to pass the fund to Weindling as soon as it was transferred to Tokyo.
Weindling is one of seven of JPM’s Japan equities team based in Tokyo, while Lloyd is one of two based in Hong Kong.
The former has managed the JPMorgan Japanese Investment Trust since December 2007 and expects to follow similar themes in the Oeic, but with a more aggressive execution.
“It’s not like we are going for a smaller portfolio. We believe in the same themes but back them to an even greater degree,” Weindling said.
He admits Japan faces some large-scale problems, not least its ageing population, but said his job is to spot the companies that can benefit from these and play the theme.
One such example is Unicharm, a company which manufactures nappies for both babies and adults, and is posed to reap the rewards of the booming adult nappy market as Japan’s population ages further.
Companies in sectors such as consumer electronics, steel, chemicals and utilities are not favoured by Weindling, who said they have lost out either to companies in other countries or because they have structural challenges in their markets.
He aims to find companies with stories that will unfold over three, five or even 10 years and holds a stock for an average period of three years.
The performance of Weindling’s Japanese Investment Trust since he has been running it is mixed, with him underperforming the market over five years, down 18.56% compared to a loss of 16.74% from the Topix.
Meanwhile over three years he has returned 8.46% for shareholders against a benchmark return of 2.51% and over one year he has once again lagged the index, down 5.47% compared to -2.81% from the benchmark.
