Commentary

"You can’t dine off relative returns, and in Asia we believe the benchmark indices are a poor reflection of the overall investment opportunities. The priority of the Company is to make money, whilst providing an element of capital preservation in a volatile asset class."

Robin Parbrook & King Fuei Lee

Co-Managers of the Schroder Asian Total Return Investment Company

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Commentary

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Annual General Meeting 2020 Presentation

While the Government’s “Stay at Home Measures” are in force, public gatherings of more than two people are prohibited. In place of an in-person presentation at this year's AGM, fund manager Robin Parbrook has recorded his shareholder presentation.

Q3 2020 Commentary

The fund had another quarter of strong gains and outperformed the reference regional index. Our stock selection in Greater China (China, Hong Kong SAR and Taiwan) was the key contributor while India was a relative drag. Technology / Internet / Ecommerce names such as Alibaba, SEA and some Taiwanese hardware names including TSMC continued to perform well on the back of the structurally supportive and accelerating trends in these areas as a result of the global pandemic and related lockdowns. Hedges in the portfolio also added some value over the quarter. Activity on the fund was relatively quiet. We continued to lock in some gains from stocks that have bounced strongly where upside to fair value became more limited. We used the weakness in Taiwan as an opportunity to add to a couple of our existing tech holdings with strong competitive positions among peers. On hedges, we took advantage of a brief fall in put pricing to add to the puts on the Hong Kong and China indices to maintain an element of capital preservation in the fund.

The fund has outperformed the reference regional index in each of the past 3 quarters of the year, and the solid Q3 performance has added to the fund’s YTD returns. Over the YTD period, both stock selection and hedges have contributed to gains of the portfolio; technology, internet and Chinese domestic consumption have again been key drivers of performance over the period.

Activity on the fund was relatively quiet. We continued to lock in some gains from stocks that have bounced strongly where upside to fair value became more limited. We used the weakness in Taiwan as an opportunity to add to a couple of our existing tech holdings with strong competitive positions among peers. On hedges, we took advantage of a brief fall in put pricing to add to the puts on the Hong Kong and China indices to maintain an element of capital preservation in the fund.

Discrete yearly performance (%)

	Q4/2015 - Q3/2016	Q4/2016 - Q3/2017	Q4/2017 - Q3/2018	Q4/2018 - Q3/2019	Q4/2019 - Q3/2020
Share price	45.3	31.1	8.2	5.3	20.1
Net Asset Value	37.5	24.2	6.5	5.0	21.0
Reference Index	37.7	16.8	4.9	4.0	8.3

What are the risks?

Past performance is not a guide to future performance and may not be repeated. The value of investments and the income from them may go down as well as up and investors may not get back the amount originally invested.

Investors in the emerging markets and Asia should be aware that this involves a high degree of risk and should be seen as long term in nature.Less developed markets are generally less well regulated than the UK, they may be less liquid and may have less reliable arrangements for trading and settlement of the underlying holdings.

The Company holds investments denominated in currencies other than sterling, investors should note that exchange rates may cause the value of these investments, and the income from them, to rise or fall.

The Company invests in smaller companies that may be less liquid than in larger companies and price swings may therefore be greater than investment companies that invest in larger companies.

The Company may borrow money to invest in further investments, this is known as gearing. Gearing will increase returns if the value of the investments purchased increase in value by more than the cost of borrowing, or reduce returns if they fail to do so.

Investments such as warrants, participation certificates, guaranteed bonds, etc. will expose the fund to the risk of the issuer of these instruments defaulting on paying the capital back to the Company

The fund can use derivatives to protect the capital value of the portfolio and reduce volatility, or for efficient portfolio management.

Portfolio holdings

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Please remember that the value of investments and the income from them may go down as well as up and investors may not get back the amounts originally invested.

Marketing material.

Issued by Schroder Unit Trusts Limited, 1 London Wall Place, London EC2Y 5AU. Registered Number 4191730 England.

Schroder Unit Trusts Limited is an authorised corporate director, authorised unit trust manager and an ISA plan manager, and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

On 17 September 2018 our remaining dual priced funds converted to single pricing and a list of the funds affected can be found in our Changes to Funds. To view historic dual prices from the launch date to 14 September 2018 click on Historic prices.

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