You are here: cherry > Press releases for September 2010 > WAY Investment Managers turn up the heat with latest performance - based Asian Spice Fund

13 September 2010

Gabrielle Knights (Wessex Asset Management) to helm latest WAY fund Aimed at clients looking for a high growth addition to a more general portfolio Focuses on Far Eastern markets (avoiding Japan) Medium to long term growth targets Tiered performance fee structure WAY Investment Managers has launched a new retail fund focused on the Asia-Pacific financial markets. The Asian Spice Fund, launched as part of a triumvirate of unique performance-based funds this summer, is managed by Gabrielle Knights, of Wessex Asset Management. With a remit to achieve long-term capital appreciation, the fund will focus on delivering returns from investments across the Indian sub-continent, through to Australia and New Zealand and as far north as China and Korea. Paul Wilcox, WAY Group Chairman said “We are very pleased to have Wessex Asset Management on board with the Asian Spice Fund, as the new fund manager has over a decade of experience in dealing with the excitement of developing Oriental markets.” As part of WAY’s successful stable of third party fund managers, the fund will be managed on a day-to-day basis by Gabrielle Knights, who first ran portfolios in this region for the Swiss Bank Corporation in the late 1980’s, before spending ten years as an Asian Equity broker with HSBC, UBS and BNP-Paribas. “Knights is now a member of a formidable team of Asian specialists managing long/short institutional mandates at Wessex Asset Management and will be supported by renowned investment specialist, Peter Chesterfield, the original award winning star of Abbey Asian Pacific Growth,” added Wilcox. Knights said “The fund will avoid Japan entirely and favour a well spread exposure to most of the Asian markets, with a particular emphasis on India and China, whether directly or indirectly.” “The Asian Spice Fund will maintain a well spread but actively managed approach, seeking out the most robust and high growth sectors across this dynamic region,” she added. “Asian economic models have changed over the last 20 years – from being dependent on exports to the West, to urbanisation, growth of the middle class and domestic consumption – so the fund will concentrate on those plays. “This trend has been encouraged by political, economic and social change which has brought increasing wealth to the region. “In the 1980s one could stand on the border between Hong Kong and mainland China and see miles and miles of nothing but paddy fields and today, well, it is an exciting cityscape, representing the engine for world growth looking ahead over the next decade and beyond,” Knights added. The iconic 'no win, low fee' approach to delivering performance to investors – central to the WAY Group’s other fund launches this July – is again a key characteristic of the Asian Spice Fund. An innovative charging structure sees the Fund Manager take 0.5% annual management charge and a performance fee which only kicks in once the Fund has achieved 10% growth in that year. “This fee is applied on a tiered structure whereby performance up to 20% only incurs a 1% fee (inclusive of the AMC), thereby delivering a highly cost effective level of net returns to shareholders,” said Knights. “The performance fee then increases - but only once shareholders are benefitting from competitive returns.” The retail share class incorporates an additional 0.5% annual charge which is then paid out to advisers as trail commission. – Ends –

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