Saturday 1 November 2008

Value Partners fund loses 37pc in assets

Value Partners Group, the Hong Kong-based asset manager in which Ping An Insurance (Group) holds a minority stake, said its oldest fund lost 37.33 per cent of its assets in five weeks.

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Guanyu said...

Value Partners fund loses 37pc in assets

Jonathan Yang
1 November 2008

Value Partners Group, the Hong Kong-based asset manager in which Ping An Insurance (Group) holds a minority stake, said its oldest fund lost 37.33 per cent of its assets in five weeks.

Value Partners Classic Fund’s assets under management had fallen to US$410.8 million by Wednesday from US$655.5 million on September 24, according to the company. At its peak in October last year, the fund oversaw more than US$1.3 billion.

“The company’s [assets under management] have been very much hurt by the recent market volatility,” said a market observer. “But we see a fall of about 30 per cent as an okay performance for Value Partners and other global and local asset management companies as there have been many worse cases in the turbulent market.”

As the MSCI Asia-Pacific Index had slumped about 55 per cent so far this year, many such funds’ assets under management were just following the index, he said.

Stock pickers such as Value Partners have been weighed down by the tumbling markets and investors’ withdrawals that have forced them to sell assets cheap.

The Hang Seng Index, for example, fell 361.18 points yesterday, extending its losses to 13,844 points or 49.78 per cent this year.

Value Partners Classic Fund shed 31 per cent of its value in the month to Wednesday, extending this year’s loss to 56 per cent. The fund, which invests in Asia-Pacific stocks, was undervalued based on the fact that fundamental analysis had returned 754 per cent since its inception in April 1993, Value Partners said.

According to a company announcement, Value Partners lost 23.26 per cent of its overall assets under management in the first 17 days of last month. The amount of assets it oversees more than halved to US$3.3 billion by October 17 from the end of last year.

At the end of September, the unaudited assets under management of Value Partners Group amounted to US$4.3 billion, down US$800 million from a month earlier.

The company cut 12 per cent of its workforce last month to reduce costs as fee income tumbled.

“As the market remains volatile and their [assets under management] go down, a further downsizing of about 30 per cent in the hedge fund industry may appear in the next year,” said the market observer.