HEAD-TO-HEAD: Eastspring vs Henderson

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Pearly Yap joined Eastspring in 2011, based in Singapore, and has been the manager of this Luxembourg-domiciled fund since then.

Yap is the lead manager for the Asia property equity strategies at the firm. She has about 17 years of investment experience, previously working for Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s real estate investment team.

Henderson’s Tim Gibson serves as the co-head of the global property equities team. “Among the nine members of the team, three of them, including Gibson, have a specific focus on Asia property equities,” including emerging Asia, Ng said.

He joined Henderson in 2011 and prior to that he held senior roles at AMP Capital Brookfield and Morgan Stanley, where he was a specialist in European-listed property.

A Morningstar report by analyst Mark Laidlaw noted that the two analysts who help Gibson cover the region have limited buy-side experience, placing greater key-man risk around Gibson.

One point to note is the merger between Henderson and Janus Capital, announced in October last year, introduces uncertainty in regards to the investment team.

Ng said that from his conversation with Gibson at the end of last year, he understood that there would be no significant impact on the fund or team.

“[Gibson] expected few changes to the product as Janus does not have much coverage in Asian markets,” he said. “Janus also has no Asia property exposure, so the merger should deepen the research capability [of the new entity].”

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