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Thames River Capital has taken a heavy weighting in Japan in its multi-manager portfolios following a period of low valuations in the region.

Gary Potter, co-head of multi-manager, highlighted Japan's top-down potential in the Asia Pacific region.

"Our biggest relative bet has been Japan," he said. "Japan is being dragged into China's growth. It's supplying to China's infrastructure."

Rob Burdett, co-head, said price-to-book values and yields also looked attractive.

"Japanese companies have been notably poor payers of dividends, but they've been growing them by 15 per cent, whereas the UK has been growing them by less than 10 per cent."

He did not rule out investing in Japan's smaller companies, although the average fund in the IMA Japanese Smaller Companies sector lost 27.3 per cent in the year to 7 June and 34.2 per cent over three years.

"There are certain funds that have been taken to the cleaners because of their small and mid-cap bias, but at some stage you might look to them just because they're so bombed out."

As a result, Mr Burdett said he and Mr Potter had recently bought into the £22m Melchior Japan Advantage. The portfolio now constitutes 4.75 per cent of their £8.9m Global Boutiques, 4.5 per cent of their £3.9m Balanced Managed and 3.5 per cent of their £2.7m Equity Managed funds.

He said they also added to positions in the £122.9m JO Hambro Japan, the £194.7m Jupiter Japan Income and the ¥18.5bn (£87.6m) Coupland Cardiff Japan.

Global Boutiques now has a 13 per cent overall position in the country, with 9.5 per cent in Equity Managed and 7.5 per cent in Balanced Managed.