New Manulife CEO to pursue growth amid global challenges
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Manulife Asset Management (Thailand) has appointed Tor Indhavivadha as chief executive officer to help boost growth amid the global economic slowdown.
Tor is an industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience in the Thai market. He has joined Manulife Asset Management after spending 10 years at ING Funds (Thailand) as head of sales and distribution.
“This is an exciting time to be joining Manulife Asset Management (Thailand), a company I believe has great growth potential in the Thai market,” Tor said.
Manulife Asset Management has investment professionals in 10 markets across Asia and yesterday launched a feeder fund, Manulife Strength-Asian Small Cap Equity FIF.
The fund will invest in Manulife Global Fund-Asian Small Cap Equity Fund (Share Class I), the master fund focusing on equities of small-capitalisation companies in the Asian and/or Pacific region. The fund’s initial public offering period is January 18-27.
The fund is seen as an alternative investment for those who seek to diversify.
“The fund uses a bottom-up strategy for stock selection to identify those that have growth potential, are at the early stages of a company’s growth, and are under-researched by the brokerage community and therefore under-priced,” said Linda Csellak, head of Asia-Pacific equities at Manulife Asset Management.
Tor said many Asian countries remained strong and continued to deliver sound economic growth despite the challenging environment of the sluggish US economy and the European debt crisis.
“Asian small caps have shown strong earnings growth, and attractive valuations relative to large caps. They have also outperformed large-cap equities in most investment environments over the last 10 years,” Tor said.
At the end of 2011, the company had about Bt2.3 billion in assets under management.
In 2012, the company will add more products by selecting its parent firm’s various master funds to offer investors, as Canada-based Manulife has a network in 17 countries with more than 300 fund managers across the world.
This year, the company will launch at least three more funds, focusing on overseas investment in equities and fixed-income instrument, Tor said.
The company remained positive on Asia, where economic growth is higher than in the West. Among other to-be-offered funds, an Asian equity fund or Asean equity fund is expected for a launch.
