Head To Head

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Barings versus Fidelity

FSA compares two Asean products: The Barings Asean Frontiers Fund and the Fidelity Asean Fund.

by Francis Nikolai Acosta 23 August 201910 November 2020

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Luke Ng, FE Advisory Asia

Introduction

Asean equities are considered a subset of the Asia-Pacific ex-Japan universe. But due to macro events, Asean has become less dependent on other key Asian markets, according to Luke Ng, Hong Kong-based vice president at FE Advisory Asia.

“The Asean markets are less affected by disruptions in the global supply chain.

“For example, they are less attached to China, which means that the impact of the trade war could be minimal. They have their own development path, driven by domestic economic growth,” he said.

A majority of the Asean market may actually benefit from a negative outcome of the trade war, Arthur Lau, co-head of emerging market fixed income at Pinebridge Investments, said previously.

Product manufacturing will continue to move away from China to other countries, including Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines, he said.

Year-to-date, Asean markets on average have performed better than the broader Asia market: the MSCI AC Asean Index has returned 4.07%, compared to 3.49% for the MSCI AC Asia ex-Japan.

Against this backdrop, FSA asked Ng to compare two Asean products: the Barings Asean Frontiers Fund and the Fidelity Asean Fund.

	Barings	Fidelity
Size	$392.3m	$772m
Inception	August 2008	October 1990
Manager	Soo Hai Lim, Calista Lee, HyungJin Lee	Madeleine Kuang
Three-year cumulative return*	14.61%	13.70%
Three-year annualised return**	4.42%	4.64%
Three-year annualised alpha**	1.72%	2.04%
Three-year annualised volatility**	11.78	10.57
Morningstar analyst rating	Bronze	Neutral
Morningstar star rating	****	****
FE Crown fund rating	**	**
OCF (retail share class)	1.71%	1.95%

Source: FE Analytics, Morningstar Direct

*19 August 2016 – 21 August 2019

**20 August 2016 – 16 August 2019

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