Fund Objective

The aim of the Pacific Growth Fund is to achieve capital growth.

View on Past Performance

The Pacific Growth Fund invests across the Asian region using a Fund of Funds approach. The allocation benchmark is to retain approximately 70% in Asia ex Japan and 30% in Japan. The Fund's objective is to achieve longer term growth from the portfolio. For the three month period to the 30th June the return for the fund was down -5.18%.The Fund selection contains both regional funds as well as country specific. Funds are chosen for the fund following extensive research and meetings with managers. There is a bias towards growth funds rather than value and in the problematic period that the market is going through, this has proven to be difficult.The benefit of using a fund of funds approach is that we can blend those funds with a defensive strategy along with those that have a more growth bias. Going forward we believe the Asia Pacific region should continue to offer investors the potential for impressive returns as economic and corporate fundamentals remain intact.Despite the current turmoil in global markets, Asia should be less vulnerable to external shocks, as the region is showing greater maturity.There is evidence of this as management begin to place a greater emphasis on returning cash to shareholders and ensuring balance sheets are healthy, cashflows are in good shape, capital expenditure is efficiently managed and dividend payments are on the increase.

Future Expectations

We remain positive over the long term for the Japanese region, although the fund has moved to a defensive stance more recently, selling out of the Melchior Japan Opportunities Fund and switching into the Fidelity FAST Japan Fund.Within the Asian part of the portfolio, we have reduced our allocation towards the Melchior Asian Opportunities Fund and added the M&G Asian Fund. Overall these changes have resulted in a shift up the market cap scale to a more large cap bias particularly within the Japanese allocation.We have also increased our exposure to Japan at the expense of our Asian allocation, with a tactical weighting of 30% in Japan, 60% in Asia and the remaining 10% in country specific funds and cash.

Fund Details