Atlantis Investment Management’s China Fund has grown from $18 million to $98 million and has returned 72.3% against the MSCI China Free index up 48.8% over the year since it was launched in March 2003.
Yang Liu, the China fund manager, says “we have worked hard to reinforce relationships with companies in Mainland China which has been crucial to the success of our bottom-up investment approach.”
The fund is biased towards small-to-mid cap stocks and Liu believes this is where much of the value remains in China. “The market has fallen sharply over the last 4 months creating buying opportunities in good quality companies,” she says.
The fund holds purely Chinese stocks and Liu invests across the board in H-shares, China B-shares, P-chips and Redchips. Atlantis follows a fundamental, bottom-up approach, visiting hundreds of companies each year. As a Chinese mainlander and former project analyst for CITIC, Liu has a network of contacts across the country; she herself is able to ask questions of company management without relying on broker research.
Currently, the fund invests in property, manufacturing, transportation and domestic consumption plays but sees investment opportunities from gold mining to ecological projects.
The fund has an AA rating from Standard & Poor’s.