First State launches Worldwide Equity fund for Asante

First State has launched a Worldwide Equity fund for the group’s Asian and global emerging markets team, to be co-managed by Jonathan Asante and Stuart Paul.

Asante, head of emerging markets at the group, and Paul, joint managing partner of the Asia Pacific and global emerging markets equity team, will invest in a combination of developed and emerging market equities via the fund.

It will aim to provide long-term capital growth through a portfolio of up to 120 stocks, and will be benchmarked against the MSCI AC World index.

The portfolio will focus on large caps such as Unilever and GlaxoSmithKline, which aim to tap into the growth potential of emerging markets. Alongside these well known names, it will also hold equities domiciled in emerging markets.

The fund will sit alongside the range of top performing portfolios the group already runs including the Global Emerging Markets, Global Emerging Markets Leaders, and Global Emerging Markets Sustainability funds.

Asante is lead manager of the £1.8bn Global Emerging Markets Leaders fund, as well as the group's £700m Global Emerging Markets fund, both of which have top-quartile performance in the IMA Global Emerging Markets sector.

Over three years the Global Emerging Markets Leaders fund has returned 124%, while the Global Emerging Markets fund has delivered 125%, ahead of the sector average return of 82%, according to Morningstar.

First State's Asia Pacific and global emerging markets team is headed up by Angus Tulloch, with the team running roughly £22bn assets in total.

Tulloch is lead manager of the £883m First State Asia Pacific Leaders fund which boasts top-quartile performance in the IMA Asia Pacific Excluding Japan sector, returning 127% over three years compared to the 91.6% peer group average, according to Morningstar.