The latest news in investment offerings, financial products and other services relative to wealth advisors and their clients.

Value Partners, Bank of China
Value Partners, an Asian asset manager, has just announced a distribution partnership with the Bank of China to launch Value Partners Japan REIT Fund for Hong Kong investors. Authorised by the Securities and Futures Commission, the fund aims to help investors achieve capital appreciation and income generation through investments in various types of Japanese REITs.

Japan’s REIT market has developed for over 23 years and is the largest in the Asia-Pacific region, with a market capitalisation exceeding $100 billion, the firm said in a statement. The market targets cities and is diversified across various sectors, including offices, logistics, retail, residential, hotels, and healthcare, offering investors abundant investment opportunities. In addition to rental income, active management can enhance investment value through stock selection and trading, the firm added.

The fund aims to provide sustainable dividends' income. Besides the Japanese yen share class, it also offers currency-hedged share classes in dollars, Hong Kong dollars, and Chinese renminbi. Given that Japanese interest rates remain relatively low compared with other currencies, investors can earn additional returns from the currency-hedged share classes, providing an attractive income source in the current investment environment, the firm added. 

“With Japan's thriving economy, property prices and rents are expected to continue their upward trend, presenting further growth potential,” Vincent Ching, managing director, head of intermediaries, Asia Pacific at Value Partners, said.

abrdn
Investment manager abrdn has just launched an Asia Pacific Dynamic Dividend Strategy, designed to provide investors with access to the growth potential of the Asia-Pacific region while offering a sustainable dividend yield. The strategy is available to retail investors in Singapore and professional investors in Hong Kong, the firm said in a statement.

“We are seeing a growing demand among investors for products that generate high income without compromising on capital growth by using excessively complex derivative instruments,” David Hanzl, head of wholesale APAC, abrdn, said.

The strategy aims to achieve capital growth, offering a consistent and sustainable yield. It adopts an active bottom-up approach, typically holding between 50 to 90 companies within the Asia-Pacific ex Japan equity universe.The strategy employs a two-pronged approach to achieve capital growth and maintain a consistent and sustainable yield. The core sleeve, which accounts for approximately 95 per cent of the strategy's weight, focuses on long-term investments in high-quality companies which are expected to provide capital appreciation and dividends, the firm added. The remaining allocation is dedicated to the dividend capture sleeve, which rotates into regular and special dividend events in an opportunistic manner, using analysis of business cycles, asset sales, and special cash windfalls to enhance the dividend yield.

Formerly known as Standard Life Aberdeen, abrdn manages and administers ÂŁ505.9 billion ($563.3 billion) of assets for clients (as at 30 June 2024). Its investments business manages ÂŁ369 billion for clients such as insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, independent wealth managers, pension funds, platforms, banks and family offices.

Kasikorn Asset Management Co
Kasikorn Asset Management Co has launched two mutual funds for Thai investors: the K Global Equity Premium Income Fund and the K Global Select Equity Fund.

The funds feed into JP Morgan Asset Management's actively managed exchange-traded funds, building on a partnership that Kasikorn AM has already forged with JPMAM.

The two new funds aim to provide investors with global equity market exposure to generate potential returns across a variety of market conditions. 

The K Global Equity Premium Income Fund invests in JPMAM’s JP Morgan Global Equity Premium Income Active UCITS ETF, which combines active equity investment with options overlay strategy to seek regular and consistent income opportunities and appreciation potential with lower volatility. The K Global Select Equity Fund invests in the JP Morgan Global Select Equity ETF, a high-conviction strategy that invests primarily in large-cap companies and aims to deliver outperformance in different market conditions.