Since launch three years ago, the fund’s 59.36% return has significantly outperformed its benchmark MSCI Asia Pacific ex-Japan index’s 10.19% and raised almost $1bn through targeting discretionary managers and fund of funds.
Mark Dwerryhouse, sales director, said the fund had already soft-closed to new investors – which would have also included institutional and European investors – last year in terms of scaling back marketing efforts due to its success at gathering assets.
He said when the product was launched three years ago its intention was always to have a limited capacity in order to achieve best performance for its investors.
In addition, the fund’s performance had added to its appeal, a popular choice among fund buyers. F&C’s Gary Potter and Robert Burdett added to the position in MM Navigator Distribution and Brooks Macdonald said it has been a core holding on its International buylist for the last couple of years.
Dwerryhouse said it was difficult to anticipate how long the front-end charge would be in place for, it depending on factors including AUM and market conditions.
Richard Larner, head of offshore research at Brooks Macdonald Asset Management, said it was quite a typical approach in order to manage inflows and ensure they could keep up their quality of performance.
He said Brooks would remove it from the screening process as it was no longer able to buy the fund but it would keep a close eye for when the charge was removed.
As an alternative, given Aberdeen and First State’s vehicles had also been closed to new investment, he suggested Newton Asian Income as a sound option.
