Lazard Asset Management has announced the launch of the Lazard Japanese Strategic Equity Fund in Australia.
It will be managed by the Tokyo-based Lazard Japanese equity team, who have helmed the fund since 2006.
The Lazard Japanese Strategic Equity Fund holds around 30 securities and invests in undervalued opportunities in the Japanese equity market, utilising an investment approach that focuses on bottom-up stock selection in a style-neutral absolute-return manner.
It seeks to achieve total returns (including income and capital appreciation and before the deduction of fees and taxes) that exceed those of the Tokyo Stock Price Index (TOPIX) Net Total Return Index (AUD) by 3–5 per cent per annum over the long term.
June-Yon Kim, portfolio manager and analyst who leads the Lazard Japanese equity team, highlighted the strong potential of Japanese markets.
“The Japanese equity market is a broad and diversified investment universe, offering an attractive opportunity set, which is lowly correlated to other developed markets,” Kim said.
He identified two key themes continuing to play out in these markets, namely corporate improvement driving improved capital efficiency and higher shareholder return and the shift from deflation to inflation gradually transforming economic behaviour.
“We believe the market is still underestimating the potential of these two secular tailwinds. Now is an opportune time for investors to revisit their strategic weighting to Japanese equities,” Kim said.
Earlier this year, the asset manager launched its first exchange-traded fund in Australia, providing investors and advisers access to an actively managed portfolio of listed infrastructure companies.
The Lazard Global Listed Infrastructure Active ETF (GIFL) was listed on Cboe Global Markets in June, with the ETF comprising 25 to 50 companies from a select subset of the global infrastructure market that the firm believes provide higher revenue predictability, profitability, and lower volatility.
