By Park Hyong-ki
Staff Reporter
Equity funds investing in Southeast Asian countries are coming into the limelight after months of lackluster performances on credit woes.
According to Zeroin, a fund evaluating company, investors are beginning to show growing signs of interest in such funds as alternative investment products such as global stock markets, which are slowly recovering from a continuous wave of subprime shocks.
Analysts say the region shows high growth potential, citing abundant energy resources and rising consumption on economic growth.
Also, countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia are enjoying high liquidity on increasing inflows of capital from oil-producing Middle Eastern nations.
Of the funds, NH-CA's Vietnam-ASEAN Plus Fund is outperforming others with a return of over 6 percent, followed by Yurie Asset Management's Oil Money Malaysia Plus with a yield of 5 percent.
Investors started eyeing Southeast Asian funds last July, but began to lose steam on global credit woes, especially in the first three months of this year.
Given that the region is relatively less exposed to a U.S. economic slowdown on subprime mortgage defaults, the regional funds gained momentum in April with assets under management jumping by ten-fold to some 975 billion won from the same period a year ago, the Zeroin said.
Other attractive funds are Samsung's Global Best Southeast Asian Equity and Mirae Asset's Malaysia Discovery.
Even though they are no match for funds investing in Brazil, Russia, India and China, or the BRICs, an increasing number of securities and asset management companies are introducing and marketing Southeast Asian funds.
For instance, Daishin Securities recently released a fund investing in Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. Offering investors the chance to diversify their portfolios, investing in Malaysian stocks accounts for 31 percent of the total, followed by Indonesia at 30 percent, Thailand 33 percent, and Vietnam 6 percent. The fund focuses on investing in sectors such as energy, commodities, telecommunications and finance.
Daewoo Securities also introduced a fund investing in Malaysia and Indonesia's energy, infrastructure, real estate and finance sectors.
phk@koreatimes.co.kr