Head To Head

HEAD-TO-HEAD: First State versus Templeton

FSA compares the First State Asian Equity Plus Fund and the Templeton Asia Growth Fund.

by Francis Nikolai Acosta 22 February 201910 November 2020

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Isaac Poole, Oreana Private Wealth

Introduction

The Asia-Pacific equity markets took a beating in 2018. The MSCI AC Asia-Pacific (ex-Japan) Index was down 13.66% during the year versus the MSCI AC World’s -8.93% performance, according to FE data.

However, markets have recovered, with the Asia-Pacific index returning 9.37% year-to-date.

“Given the momentum and the recovery we’ve had in 2019, there’s definitely more interest to date than there was last year, when Asia suffered along with the rest of the world,” said Isaac Poole, chief investment officer at Oreana Private Wealth.

Other fund managers and private banks, such as Robeco and Deutsche Bank Wealth Management, have also become more positive on the asset class.

However, familiar risks continue to put pressure on Asia-Pacific equities: the outcome of the US-China trade negotiations, the clear slowdown of China’s economy and key elections in the region this year.

Against this backdrop, FSA asked Poole to compare two Asia-Pacific equity funds: the First State Asian Equity Plus Fund and the Templeton Asian Growth Fund.

	First State	Templeton
Size	$3.9bn	$3.3bn
Inception	2003	1991
Manager	Martin Lau, Richard Jones	Erik Mok, Sukumar Rajah
Three-year cumulative return*	50.54%	41.00%
Three-year annualised return**	14.04%	11.36%
Three-year annualised alpha**	4.40%	1.44%
Three-year annualised volatility**	12.3	14.22
Morningstar analyst rating	Gold	Neutral
Morningstar star rating	*****	**
FE Crown fund rating	*****	***
OCF	1.58%	2.21%

Source: FE Analytics, Morningstar

*19 February 2016 – 20 February 2019

**20 February 2016 – 15 February 2019

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