It is designed to provide investors with exposure to Asian equities but use a convertibles strategy to provide lower volatility. As a comparison, during the fabled ‘lost generation’ for equity investing, from 2000 to 2010, the UBS Asian Focus Convertible index returned over 91% with a 7.5% volatility; the MSCI Asia Equity index returned just under 90% but with a 22% volatility.
The RWC Asia Convertibles Fund is a long-only unsophisticated Ucits III fund that focuses solely on convertible bonds issued by either companies based in Asia or those deriving the predominant part of their earnings from the region.
It offers daily dealing but requires three-days notice for redemptions. The strategy Basile, head of global convertibles, will follow means he will generate returns from some of the less smaller, liquid issues so he has decided up-front to constrain the fund at $300m.
Basile and his team will run the Asian convertibles proposition alongside its $1.3bn RWC Global Convertibles Fund.
