The Asian Opportunities Investors Are Missing with Cameron Robertson

Bryce (0:00)

Most Australians are underweight Asia in their portfolios. Give us the cell. Why Asia?

Cameron Robertson (0:05)

It's 15% of global benchmarks, but you look at it, it's half the world. Half of the global population, half of economic activity, more than half of global growth. The fact that people only have 15% of their portfolio there, they're basically just missing out on half of the possible opportunities they could get access to. And I think that that's a real shame.

Ren (0:22)

If you could only own one Asian market for the next decade, which one are you choosing and why?

Bryce (0:29)

Oh, this is tough.

Welcome to another episode of Equity Mates, the show where we explore what's possible in the world of investing. If you've just joined us for the very first time, a huge welcome to our community. My name is Bryce.

Ren (0:44)

And I'm Ren. And today we're talking all things Asia, because a lot of Australian investors are underweight the region. And after the interview we've just done, it's a pretty exciting region.

Bryce (0:56)

I always get excited chatting about Asia. And today we're joined by an expert. His name is Cameron Robertson. He's the portfolio manager for the Platinum Asia Fund. The fund is actually listed. The name is Platinum Asia Fund Complex ETF. The ticket is PAXX.

Ren (1:12)

We talk about all things Asia today with what we do. Two of the grounds really. China, India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam.

Korea. It's a fascinating conversation. The one thing we particularly appreciate about Cam is he had examples from all of those markets. Plenty of companies that we've never heard of. If you want to get excited about a Philippines chicken chain or a Chinese stage lighting company, he has all of the examples. We go into all of that, but we also just talk about the region more generally, its growth story, its development, some of the drivers, and some of the risks when it comes to investing in the region. So great conversation, hopefully, when you enjoy. Before we get into it, we want to say a massive thank you to Platinum, which is part of the L1 Group for sponsoring this episode and helping us keep all of our content free here at Equity Mates.

Bryce (2:06)

Well, with that said, let's get to our conversation with Cameron. Well, Cameron, welcome to Equity Mates.

Cameron Robertson (2:14)

Thanks. Great to be here.

Bryce (2:15)

So Asia, it's roughly 15% of the global stock market index, but most Australians are underweight Asia in their portfolios. So let's start. Give us the sell. Why Asia?

Cameron Robertson (2:26)

Yeah. I mean, I think you sort of started with the why Asia, right? It's 15% of global benchmarks, but you look at it, it's half the world. Half of the global population, half of economic activity, more than half of global growth. And so the fact that people only have 15% of their portfolio there, they're basically just missing out on half of the possible opportunities that they could get access to. And I think that that's a real shame.

As well, for a lot of people, it's quite a different set of economic opportunities than what they get in the rest of their portfolio. So it can be quite a nice diversifier from a portfolio construction point of view. You know, you think about you put different assets together with different drivers, and when one's dropping, the other one might be doing well, and that just gives you a smoother ride at the overall portfolio level for the end investor, which is quite attractive, I think.

Ren (3:09)

Before we get into the details, I think it's good to level set because when we talk about Asia, it can be confusing which countries are included and which ones aren't. So for this conversation, are we including Japan in it?

Cameron Robertson (3:21)

Well, interestingly, Asia today doesn't include Japan. Yeah.

Normally.

But yeah, so I guess the history for us is the Platinum Asia Fund was launched back more than 20 years ago, and Japan was the first of the Asian larger countries to really boom. So you go back, at one point, Japan was, I think, almost 40% of global indices, would you believe? Absolutely. And back then, the rest of Asia was kind of economically a twinkle in the eye. Yeah. And so Platinum had a separate Asia Fund and Platinum Japan Fund as well. And we've just kind of kept those. So yeah, today, I'm focused on Asia ex Japan. Yeah. Big markets for us, Taiwan, Korea, China and India. And then you've got the whole sort of ASEAN, Southeast Asian region that collectively is important, but individually still fairly small countries. Yeah, yeah, yeah.