Active China A shares equity fund launched

Heptagon Capital and Harvest Global Investment have launched what they claim is the first UCITS fund to take an actively managed approach to the China A share equity market.

The new funds will be launched on the Irish UCITS platform of Heptagon, a London-based asset manager, and will be managed by Harvest, the third largest asset manager in China, with over £50 billion in assets under management. Harvest follows a “growth at a reasonable price” approach, and will focus on companies with good growth prospects.

Harvest CEO Peng Choy, who is based in Hong Kong, commented: “Harvest was one of the first groups to receive RQFII (Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor) status in 2011, and since then we have been at the vanguard of efforts to allow international investors to gain exposure to the economic opportunities in China and indeed the wider Asian markets, across all asset classes.”

Pat Lardner, CEO of the Irish Funds Industry Association, said: “The launch by Heptagon of the Harvest China A Shares Equity Fund marks another key milestone in the use of Irish UCITS by accomplished investment managers to provide access to the Chinese securities markets. We welcome this exciting development – with both active and ETF RQFII offerings now available via UCITS, Ireland continues to be a key and innovative partner to global fund managers.”