The Capital International Group hosted an Investment Seminar for local financial advisers and selected guests at The Salt Bar & Kitchen on 22nd April 2015.

Guest speakers included Damian Taylor from Martin Currie and Paul Cooper from Sarasin Fund Managers. Both Damian and Paul brought a wealth of knowledge to the seminar speaking respectively on Global Real Estate and Asian equity markets.

Damian joined Martin Currie in July 2013 as an investment manager in the Asia team, having previously worked at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Damian’s talk focused on Martin Currie’s Asia Long-Term Unconstrained Fund. He explored Asia as a region and how he could offer investors opportunities but also pointed to a number of downsides to watch out for. He then highlighted how the underlying strategy had benefited from several key holdings including Maruti Suzuki, which is an innovative automotive stock in the Indian market. Damian concluded with a forward outlook for the Asian markets focusing on the relative strength of GDP and why current valuations are attractive.

Paul Cooper has a wealth of experience with over 28 years of investment experience, starting with Barclays de Zoete Wedd in 1986. In 1991, he joined Bank Sarasin in Switzerland and moved to the London office in 1995. Paul highlighted Sarasin’s approach to investing in global real estate with examples of how they gain exposure to prime property locations in Central Tokyo and Mid-Town New York. Paul went on to explain that Sarasin’s stock selection process is driven by their renowned thematic process. He provided some examples of core holdings in their global real estate strategy, including Hong Kong Land, Derwent London, Simon Property Group, The Link and American Campus Communities. Paul’s outlook for global property continues to be positive, even after a recent sustained period of strong performance, due primarily to accelerating rental growth and real estate yield spreads remaining above average versus 10 year government bonds.

Antony Kelsey, Head of Business Development and Marketing at The Capital International Group, concluded the seminar with a presentation on the company’s latest low cost investment management product, PRISM. He highlighted the range of different return profiles available within PRISM and how the innovative structure enables both minimum investment amounts and fees to be kept very low for clients. He finished by demonstrating a number of different client case studies which benefitted from using PRISM.

After the event, Antony reported: “It was a privilege to be able to welcome some esteemed speakers to our event. They are experts in their field and the audience welcomed their investment views. We have had tremendous feedback following this event and plan to host another in July.”

During the network session afterwards, a guest said: “Excellent presentation. The Global Real Estate Fund (Sarasin) would be a good addition to a portfolio and the PRISM product is ingenious.”

Photo - Mr Antony Kelsey, Head of Business Development and Marketing