Liontrust lines up Asian Income fund

The UK-based unit trust will launch on March 5 aiming to deliver an income level that is at least 10 per cent higher than the yield investors can receive from the overall Asian stockmarket – expected to be roughly 4.4 per cent at launch.

The fund will be managed by Mark Williams, who joined Occam in 2007 from F&C where he ran its Pacific Growth fund.

Liontrust has also hired Carolyn Chan, who has 18 years’ experience investing in Asian markets, including at Citigroup Global Markets and Daiwa Capital Markets, as an assistant fund manager to provide additional support to the team.

The launch will see Liontrust go up against the £1.25bn Newton Asian Income fund run by Jason Pidcock, the £155.8m Schroder Asian Income fund run by Richard Sennitt and the £77.3m Henderson Asian Dividend Income fund run by Mike Kerley.

Liontrust has now rebranded the Occam fund range of three Dublin-based funds as Liontrust products. Those funds carry minimum investment requirements of £25,000 but the forthcoming Asian Income fund will be UK-domiciled and carry a £1,000 minimum.

The fund will carry an annual management charge of 1.5 per cent. “Most people have gone towards Asia purely looking for growth,” said Mr Williams.

“But if you had just invested in the top quintile of income-paying companies in Asia from 1995 to 2011 you would have significantly outperformed.”