Ashley Dale, chief marketing officer and head of international business development at Mirae Asset Global Investments, explains his market strategy.
How big is Mirae Asset Global Investments in the international space?
Our firm has been expanding significantly since we launched in 1997. Mirae Asset Global Investments focuses on actively managed, high-conviction emerging market portfolios constructed through a bottom-up investment process.
We now have offices across 12 countries worldwide, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Taiwan, the UK, US and Vietnam. In addition, we have more than 120 investment professionals focusing on emerging market portfolio construction.
As of the end of July 2015, Mirae Asset Global Investments manages in excess of $73.45bn in client assets across the full spectrum of asset classes and investment solutions.
We are definitely one of the biggest homegrown Asian asset managers that has gained a presence on the international stage. I am proud to say we are perceived as one of the world’s largest managers of emerging market equities. Going forward, we will keep expanding our geographic presence and product offerings, as well as updating our investment processes.
How do you select which types of clients to do business with?
We welcome clients of all kinds. However, I have noticed that our clients are genuinely interested in our investment philosophy and concept.
At Mirae Asset, we firmly believe in the thriving consumption story in Asia. Our investment approach is to capture the vast opportunities resulting from Asia’s wealth creation, its burgeoning middle class and new technologies through active investing and a long-term perspective.
Our clients are usually global wealth managers, private banks and family offices that would like to capture the flourishing consumption story in Asia; and because Mirae Asset has a deep understanding of local market dynamics, we are able to create an investment process that is adapted to the unique demands of the emerging markets.
Ultimately, investment performance is the key to retaining clients. In this regard, we pursue a high conviction approach evidenced by concentrated and benchmark agnostic portfolios, which are positioned to maximise alpha.
How would you categorise the scale of importance of the different regions to your business model?
Our products receive a vast amount of interest in Europe and the Middle East as investors are intrigued by our unique investment themes to gain exposure to the compelling consumption growth story in Asia.
Our European and Middle Eastern clients range from private banks, wealth managers, financial advisers, and retail banks in southern Europe.
I would say Europe is the most important region to our business model at the moment, and I am still seeing more business growth generating from the continent.
As our funds are generating excellent track records, we are also seeing more business momentum coming from Asia, particularly in the wholesale distribution channel.
