Winnersrationale

Lazard Asset Management (Lazard) has been named Asian Private Banker’s Best Fund Provider – Global Equity for comprehensively demonstrating an ability to capture long-term return and short-term outperformance despite global equities markets’ multiple uncertainties in 2022.

The Lazard Global Equity Franchise Fund is actively managed and seeks long-term, defensive returns by investing globally in various “economic franchise” companies. The fund invests in listed companies which Lazard believes provide a combination of predictable earnings and significant competitive advantages.

In order to provide lower volatility, higher alpha potential and enhanced diversification against the challenging backdrop, the Lazard Global Equity Franchise Fund defines an “economic franchise” as a business that has historically shown a proven ability to generate unleveraged returns, at or above its cost of capital, for long periods, and uses this definition as part of its stock selection criteria for the fund

The Global Equity Franchise team employs a benchmark-agnostic, value-driven investment process which aims to protect against capital loss and generate strong risk-adjusted returns. As a value manager, it embraces fundamental analysis to support a bottom-up stock selection style.

Having worked together for over 14 years, the portfolio managers have achieved a simple, transparent and disciplined investment process.

The Global Equity Franchise Fund has secured an 81.4% gain for investors since its inception. While the MSCI World Index dropped 15.1% in the first eight months of 2022, the fund convincingly outperformed by merely dipping 2.5%. At the end of August 2022, it had US$600 million in AUM.

The consistency of the fund’s commitment to clients and investors has been built on the strength of solid portfolio management, and the support from the pre-sales and after-sales teams, especially when markets turned volatile during the pandemic. In 2022, Lazard Asset Management maintained its distribution network with 12 private banks in Asia.
In addition, another of the firm’s global equity teams offers the Lazard Global Thematic Equity Fund, a long-only, style-agnostic investment discipline focusing on long-term investment returns. As a wider equity strategy provider, the firm’s thematic team places emphasis on theme diversification with a strong discipline on valuation in order to mitigate the risk of pursuing overpriced securities, simply for its thematic fit.

For these reasons, Lazard Asset Management wins Best Fund Provider – Global Equity in Asian Private Banker’s 2023 Asset Management Awards for Excellence.