Invesco Australia is rationalising its Asian fund offering, reducing the number of its retail and wholesale Asian funds to one.
Invesco is proposing to close its retail Asian Share Fund along with its wholesale Asia ex Japan Fund and wholesale Japanese Equity Trust. As a result, the manager is also proposing to change the investment objective of its wholesale Asian Share Fund by removing its requirement to invest in Japanese shares.
Invesco Australia chief executive Mick O’Brien said the plans are well advanced and expected to be implemented.
“We intend to offer investors one Asian equity product — the restructured Invesco Wholesale Asian Share Fund,” O’Brien said.
The fund will primarily cover the South East Asian markets as well as the North East Asian markets of China and Korea. While this fund will be largely intended for platform use, investors will be able to access it directly with a minimum investment of $20,000. Existing investors will be given the opportunity to transfer into the new fund without having to meet the 20K minimum.
O’Brien said the distillation of Invesco’s Asian equity product range into the one wholesale Asian Share Fund would create a “single focused investment fund for the Asian region”, while also offering investors a fund of significant scale and a cost-effective way to access opportunities in pan-Asian share markets.
The changes are slated to occur at the end of February. Ratings house Standard & Poor’s has currently withdrawn the ratings on the Invesco Asian Share Fund and Wholesale Asian Fund, which previously held three-star ratings, as well as the Wholesale Japanese Equity Trust, which previously had a four-star rating. O’Brien said the research house was likely to rate the restructured fund in the next month.
Over the past decade Invesco has offered a range of retail products with a minimum investment of $2,000. Prior to these changes Invesco offered wholesale and retail funds covering the Asian, Asia ex-Japan and Japanese markets. However, the rise in popularity of platforms has meant there is little demand for those sorts of retail structures anymore, an experience reflected across the industry.
The changes did not translate into changes within the investment team, O’Brien said.
The Invesco Wholesale Asian Share Fund is listed on a number of platforms: BT Wrap, Ausmaq, Navigator, Asgard, Netwealth and Oasis.
