Marketing Director, Asia Frontier Capital

Asia Frontier Capital

Marketing Director

Investing in high growth Asian frontier economies.

Asia Frontier Capital Ltd. is a pioneering fund management company based in Hong Kong that specializes in investing in high growth Asian frontier economies by managing the AFC Asia Frontier Fund , AFC Iraq Fund and the AFC Vietnam Fund.

The AFC Asia Frontier Fund invests in public equities of Asian frontier countries that are seeing increasing consumption due to favorable demographic trends, rising incomes and high GDP growth. The fund invests in listed equities of companies that have their principal business activities in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Iraq, Laos, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. The AFC Asia Frontier Fund is positioned to take advantage of the continuing economic shifts in these countries and offers high returns combined with significant diversification opportunities. This fund is directed by the founder and CEO of Asia Frontier Capital, Thomas Hugger, who has been investing in frontier markets across Asia and Africa for more than 20 years.

The AFC Iraq Fund was launched on the 26th June 2015 and aims to achieve long-term capital appreciation for investors by capturing value and growth potential in the post conflict high-growth & resource rich Iraq market. The fund emphasises long term investment horizon to truly capture the opportunity in Iraq. The fund's investable universe consists of locally listed companies that have their principal business activities in Iraq as well as foreign listed companies that have the majority of the business in Iraq as a whole including the prosperous Kurdish Region of Iraq (KRI). The AFC Iraq Fund offers access to investments in post conflict recovery potential of Iraq, including the KRI, and/or stability in its territory. The AFC Iraq Fund is managed by Asia Frontier Capital (Iraq) Limited, Cayman Islands under the executive leadership team of Thomas Hugger (CEO & Fund Manager) and Ahmed Tabaqchali (CIO) who have more than 47 years of investment experience as well as an extensive background covering global, emerging, frontier and MENA markets.

The AFC Vietnam Fund invests exclusively in listed Vietnamese equities to capture value in growth companies with a focus on the small to medium size companies. This market segment offers a unique investment opportunity as the valuation gap between large- and small-cap stocks in Vietnam is presently much wider than in comparable neighboring markets and the valuations are significantly depressed versus their regional peers. The fund adopts a fundamental-quantitative approach and employs an in-house earnings model to identify attractive companies where we see high growth opportunities. In conjunction with targeting the maximum upside potential the portfolio has been structured to mitigate corporate government and liquidity risks. The fund invests in a diversified portfolio of 70-90 attractively valued companies to carefully control concentration risk.  This approach allows the fund to sell, or buy, positions without having a significant market impact. The fund is directed under the executive leadership of Thomas Hugger and Andreas Vogelsanger who have more than 50 years combined experience managing investments in frontier markets, Asia and around the world.

For more information about the fund, management team and investment strategy please contact us at info@asiafrontiercapital.com.

Cross Asset Strategy

<ul><li>The year began on a strong positive note for global equity markets and most AFC funds also had a positive return at the start of the year.</li><li>Investor sentiment continues to improve as confidence grows that we are at the peak of global inflation and interest rate hikes.</li><li>This was also evident in the less aggressive 25 basis point increase in interest rates by the U.S. Fed on 1st February 2023, as well as less hawkish messaging from the U.S. Fed in the past few weeks.</li></ul>

The year began on a strong positive note for global equity markets and most AFC funds also had a positive return at the start of the year.Investor sentiment continues to improve as confidence grows that we are at the peak of global inflation and interest rate hikes.This was also evident in the less aggressive 25 basis point increase in interest rates by the U.S. Fed on 1st February 2023, as well as less hawkish messaging from the U.S. Fed in the past few weeks.

Asian Frontier Markets Start the Year Strong - Asia Frontier Capital (AFC) - January 2023 Update

Pan-Asia Index Rebalances/ Events/ Delta One, Periscope Analytics

Brian Freitas

Pan-Asia Index Rebalances/ Events/ Delta One

Periscope Analytics

Periscope Analytics focuses on event-driven trades across Asia Pacific and provides comprehensive, timely and systematic coverage of index changes to major Asia Pacific indices in a structured manner.

The analysis includes forecasted inclusions and exclusions to all major Asian indices that have significant amount of tracking assets, including estimates of passive buy/sell flow on the stocks. The service also provides commentary and impact of market consultations, ground rule changes, and other events (IPOs, spin-offs, M&A) that could lead to index changes and passive flow.

Periscope Analytics works with multi-strategy hedge funds, proprietary trading firms, stat arb trading groups and long-only investors that invest and trade in the Asia Pacific region with the data being used to trade index rebalances, avoid pre-positioning and passive flow, and to time entry into and exit from stocks.

Event-Driven Trades Across Asia Pacific

Event-Driven

<ul>
<li>
<a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/hagl-jsc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:6632:1" rel="noopener">Hagl Jsc (HAG VN)</a> is an inclusion while An Phat Holdings (APH VN) and CEO Group (CEO VN) are deletes from the MVIS Vietnam Index at the September rebalance.</li>
<li>There are a lot of float and capping changes that will result in one-way turnover of 12% and a one-way trade of US$45m.</li>
<li>There are a lot of stocks that have over 1 day of ADV to trade and there could be opportunities to enter/exit positions on a move in the stocks.</li>
</ul>



Hagl Jsc (HAG VN) is an inclusion while An Phat Holdings (APH VN) and CEO Group (CEO VN) are deletes from the MVIS Vietnam Index at the September rebalance.
There are a lot of float and capping changes that will result in one-way turnover of 12% and a one-way trade of US$45m.
There are a lot of stocks that have over 1 day of ADV to trade and there could be opportunities to enter/exit positions on a move in the stocks.


MVIS Vietnam Index Rebalance: One Add, Two Deletes

<ul>
<li>There are 2 additions and 1 deletion for the MVIS Vietnam Index at the upcoming rebalance at the close on 17 June. Plus capping and float changes.</li>
<li>The adds are <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/saigon-hanoi-commercial" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:17575:1" rel="noopener">Saigon - Hanoi Commercial (SHB VN)</a> and <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/viet-nam-construction-impo" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:17309:1" rel="noopener">Viet Nam Construction &amp; Impo (VCG VN)</a>, while Tien Phong Securities (ORS VN) is the deletion.</li>
<li>The largest passive outflows are on <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/vingroup-jsc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:13213:1" rel="noopener">Vingroup Jsc (VIC VN)</a>, <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/feng-tay-enterprise-co-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:18329:1" rel="noopener">Feng Tay Enterprise (9910 TT)</a> and <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/eclat-textile-company-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:13209:1" rel="noopener">Eclat Textile Company (1476 TT)</a>. </li>
</ul>


There are 2 additions and 1 deletion for the MVIS Vietnam Index at the upcoming rebalance at the close on 17 June. Plus capping and float changes.
The adds are Saigon - Hanoi Commercial (SHB VN) and Viet Nam Construction &amp; Impo (VCG VN), while Tien Phong Securities (ORS VN) is the deletion.
The largest passive outflows are on Vingroup Jsc (VIC VN), Feng Tay Enterprise (9910 TT) and Eclat Textile Company (1476 TT). 


MVIS Vietnam Index Rebalance: Two Adds, One Delete, Capping & Float Changes

<ul>
<li>There are 8 additions to the MVIS Vietnam Index at the upcoming rebalance at the close on 18 March. Moderate impact on most of the adds.</li>
<li>There are some stocks that have large float changes; watch <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/saigon-thuong-tin-commercial" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:650:1" rel="noopener">Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial (STB VN)</a>. Over 1 day of ADV to sell on some stocks due to capping changes.</li>
<li>At the December rebalance, all 5 adds jumped the day post announcement and then stayed in a range till implementation of the changes.</li>
</ul>


There are 8 additions to the MVIS Vietnam Index at the upcoming rebalance at the close on 18 March. Moderate impact on most of the adds.
There are some stocks that have large float changes; watch Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial (STB VN). Over 1 day of ADV to sell on some stocks due to capping changes.
At the December rebalance, all 5 adds jumped the day post announcement and then stayed in a range till implementation of the changes.


MVIS Vietnam Index Rebalance: Eight Additions & Some Big Float Changes

Independent Asian Credit Research, Bondcritic

Warut Promboon

Independent Asian Credit Research

Asian Fixed Income/Frontier Market Research

Bondcritic

Bondcritic, established in 2009, is designed to be an independent credit research voice that helps investors gain insights and unbiased analyses on Asian fixed income market. Our mission is to discover deep-value Asian high-yield and distressed bonds with a bottom-up approach, together with the help of our proprietary ESG (Environmental, Social Development, and Governance) model. At the same time, we focus on bringing investment cases of unrated and unloved issuers to the general public.

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

In this Smartkarma Original, we seek to study how diversity and incentives influence stock performance and profitability. We tallied diversity and incentive data related to the board of directors, management, and employees across major economies in Asia and picked top 10 companies of each country in terms of market capitalization. We chose to exclude major companies listed in exchanges of other economies such as Tencent and Alibaba to limit our sample size.
Then we devised diversity and incentive scores to assign to those companies and compare those scores against a 5-year trend of their return on shareholders’ equity (ROE) ratios and 1-year stock performance from 1-July-19 to 30-June-20 over its corresponding exchange indices.
The report covers diversity vs. incentives in Asia, diversity score vs. 1-year stock performance and ROE trend, incentives vs. 1-year stock performance and ROE trend, diversity + incentives scores vs. 1-year stock performance and ROE trend, companies with top and bottom diversity + incentive scores, countries with top and bottom average diversity + incentive scores, and incentive score vs. staffing cost trend. 
The results show that companies with high diversity scores do perform well. A high diversity score also has a positive impact on the ROE trend, based on our regression analysis at 95% confidence level. We found that employee incentives are not significant as staff diversity but they can still have an influence on company performances at a lower 90% confidence level.
We note that this study is at the preliminary stage and stock performance is a function of many factors, not only the diversity scores that we concluded. Needless to say, our diversity and incentive scores also reflect the level of disclosures by selected companies, not necessarily the actual practice within each company. Our diversity and incentive scores are also not a credit rating or ranking with peers and, hence, do not reflect default probability of selected companies.
We caution that in Asia, many diversity trends in the West may not apply. The fact that many Asian business communities may remain less sensitive to equal opportunities for females, disabled persons, or LGBTQ communities could make returns of Asian companies less correlated to diversity than in the West. Likewise, additional incentives in some countries in Asia may not be necessary as employees’ strong performance (i.e. in Japan) is a norm, according to the prevalent work culture.
Bondcritic is developing a scoring model, which includes environment, social development, and corporate governance; the last of which cover diversity and incentives. This report is the first of the series to uncover shenanigans in the Asian corporate sector.

In this Smartkarma Original, we seek to study how diversity and incentives influence stock performance and profitability. We tallied diversity and incentive data related to the board of directors, management, and employees across major economies in Asia and picked top 10 companies of each country in terms of market capitalization. We chose to exclude major companies listed in exchanges of other economies such as Tencent and Alibaba to limit our sample size.
Then we devised diversity and incentive scores to assign to those companies and compare those scores against a 5-year trend of their return on shareholders’ equity (ROE) ratios and 1-year stock performance from 1-July-19 to 30-June-20 over its corresponding exchange indices.
The report covers diversity vs. incentives in Asia, diversity score vs. 1-year stock performance and ROE trend, incentives vs. 1-year stock performance and ROE trend, diversity + incentives scores vs. 1-year stock performance and ROE trend, companies with top and bottom diversity + incentive scores, countries with top and bottom average diversity + incentive scores, and incentive score vs. staffing cost trend. 
The results show that companies with high diversity scores do perform well. A high diversity score also has a positive impact on the ROE trend, based on our regression analysis at 95% confidence level. We found that employee incentives are not significant as staff diversity but they can still have an influence on company performances at a lower 90% confidence level.
We note that this study is at the preliminary stage and stock performance is a function of many factors, not only the diversity scores that we concluded. Needless to say, our diversity and incentive scores also reflect the level of disclosures by selected companies, not necessarily the actual practice within each company. Our diversity and incentive scores are also not a credit rating or ranking with peers and, hence, do not reflect default probability of selected companies.
We caution that in Asia, many diversity trends in the West may not apply. The fact that many Asian business communities may remain less sensitive to equal opportunities for females, disabled persons, or LGBTQ communities could make returns of Asian companies less correlated to diversity than in the West. Likewise, additional incentives in some countries in Asia may not be necessary as employees’ strong performance (i.e. in Japan) is a norm, according to the prevalent work culture.
Bondcritic is developing a scoring model, which includes environment, social development, and corporate governance; the last of which cover diversity and incentives. This report is the first of the series to uncover shenanigans in the Asian corporate sector.

Asian Governance: Diversity & Incentives Through the Cultural Lens

Vietnam

Hoa Phat Group JSC is a multi-disciplinary manufacturing company. The Company manufactures a wide range of products, including steel, steel pipe, furniture, and refrigeration equipment.

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Hoa Phat Group Jsc (HPG VN)

Asian Frontier Markets Start the Year Strong - Asia Frontier Capital (AFC) - January 2023 Update

The year began on a strong positive note for global equity markets and most AFC funds also had a positive return at the start of the year.

Asia Frontier Capital

MVIS Vietnam Index Rebalance: One Add, Two Deletes

There is 1 addition and 2 deletions for the MVIS Vietnam Index. There are a lot of float and capping changes that will result in one-way turnover...

Brian Freitas

MVIS Vietnam Index Rebalance: Two Adds, One Delete, Capping & Float Changes

There are 2 adds, 1 delete, float and capping changes for the MVIS Vietnam Index to be implemented at the close on 17 June. One-way turnover is...

Brian Freitas

MVIS Vietnam Index Rebalance: Eight Additions & Some Big Float Changes

There are 8 additions and quite a few float changes to the MVIS Vietnam Index at the March rebalance. The one-way trade is US$80m and over a day of...

Brian Freitas

Asian Governance: Diversity & Incentives Through the Cultural Lens

In this Smartkarma Original, we seek to study how diversity and incentives influence stock performance and profitability. We tallied diversity and...

Bondcritic

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52-week Range

Market Cap (USDm)

P/E

Dividend (Yield)