Templeton Asian Smlr Coms I(acc)USD

Analyst Report
Morningstar's Take
|29/11/2023

by Claire Liang
Templeton Asian Smaller Companies continues to benefit from a solid and proven management team. The quality-focused investment process is sensible, and we have gained conviction in the managers’ execution. As such, the strategy's Process rating has been raised to Above Average from Average, whereas its People rating stays at Above Average.



The strategy is in good hands of Vikas Chiranewal, who is a veteran small-cap investor with 19 years of investment experience. He had been doing the heavy lifting alongside Chetan Sehgal on this strategy and Templeton Emerging Markets Small Cap since their 2007-08 inceptions and has been serving as the two strategies' de facto lead manager since October 2015, when Sehgal turned his focus to the large-cap Templeton Emerging Markets. Chiranewal's expertise, dedication, and investment savvy instill confidence. He has been joined by comanager Krzysztof Musialik since 2018, though Musialik has been dedicating half of his time to Templeton Eastern Europe since August 2021.

To strengthen its resources, the small-cap team hired Robert Harvey in September 2022, but he soon left in May 2023. While this is disappointing, we don't think Harvey's departure has caused any trouble for the strategy's day-to-day management given his short tenure. Nonetheless, the team can benefit from beefing up its dedicated small-cap resources, and we are monitoring their progress in backfilling Harvey's position. Encouragingly, the broader 70-plus-member investment team has stabilized since our last review, though we remain watchful of the team's development given the persistent high turnover it has experienced in the past.



The bottom-up investment approach is sensible and has been well executed over time. The managers home in on well-managed companies with sustainable earnings power, as evidenced by the portfolio's consistently higher returns on invested capital and net margins compared with the MSCI AC Asia ex Japan Small Cap Index. They also pay great attention to sound corporate governance and low financial leverage in stock selection to minimize company idiosyncratic risks. Indeed, we’ve seen them avoid poorly governed firms such as Ecopro even during adverse times, and the portfolio has always had lower leverage ratios against the index. Thanks to the managers' quality focus and sound risk management, the strategy has shown better downside resilience compared with its peers in general, such as in 2018 and 2022's selloff.

The strategy has delivered robust long-term returns for investors. Over the 10 years ended October 2023, the vehicle's W(acc)USD share class gained 5.1% per year, comfortably beating the index's 3.69% gain and 76% of its peers.
 
Morningstar Medalist Rating™Due for an upgrade.
To find out how Morningstar rates a fund click here.
Morningstar Pillars
PeopleAbove Average
ParentAverage
ProcessAbove Average
 
Morningstar Medalist RatingMorningstar assigns the Medalist Rating to funds that are qualitatively and quantitatively assessed through manager research and algorithmic processes. The assessment turns on three key “pillars” – People, Process, and Parent – that yield an estimate of how well a fund will perform before fees but after adjusting for risk.
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