Emma Wall: Hello and welcome to Morningstar. I'm Emma Wall and here with me today to give his investment tips is Chris Taylor, manager of the Neptune Japan fund.
Hello, Chris.
Chris Taylor: Morning, Emma.
Wall: So what's your first theme then for investing in Japan?
Taylor: Well it all gets back to the beneficiaries of the current government's policies, which in essence are stimulating the domestic economy through direct expenditure on infrastructure. And also the fact that the weak yen is obviously going to benefit the companies that own most of their profits outside of Japan.
So taking the last example first, it actually covers a great number of sectors. It almost doesn't matter, which industrial sector the company is in, as long as the bulk of what it sells and what it makes and its profits come from abroad. So that gives you a vast swathe of sectors from companies like Toyota and Komatsu, down to machine tool companies like Kentz or Amada.
And then it even impacts some of the materials companies who are going to benefit from a weak yen because again things like Sumitomo and Mitsui Cement companies, those industrial construction supply companies were badly hit by imports when the yen was strong, plus they benefit directly from government expenditure on infrastructure.
And then in the same way the construction companies and civil engineering companies like Shimizu or HASEKO Construction are again going to benefit from the surge in domestic infrastructure as well as they have still got a lot to replace after the earthquake. And then we have got the 2020 Olympics.
Wall: I mean you did mention there that when the yen was strong those companies got hit, is that a risk then? Should the yen recover will those companies struggle to survive?
Taylor: Well potentially, except that they actually managed to still make profits even though domestic sort of construction orders halved between 2007 and 2012. It really is the survival of the fittest with those, because those industries were massive on the back of the sort of asset boom in the late 80s and early 90s in Japan. And the whole industries had to contract massively. So if you like, the survivors can almost make money under any circumstances.
So if you give them a bit of volume and a bit of price advantage, then they are off to the races and they are probably the only sector where share prices have performed worse than financials since the '89-'90 peak. And the other point getting back to the yen is I think, the other thing that potential investors ought to be aware of with this fund is that we have actually hedged the currency and we have done it in the portfolio itself rather than offering a hedge share fund class. And that's an important difference between us and our rival funds in the sector.
Wall: Just explain briefly how you do that then?
Taylor: It's really just using forward contracts, where on one day I sell yen for sterling, get a certain exchange rate and then effectively a month later I close the transaction at whatever prevailing rate is then available. And obviously it's a bit like buying a share, if you got it the right way around, make money on it. If you don't you lose money. But the whole point of that hedging program is to avoid giving away returns through yen weakness against the sterling.
And it's a strategic hedge that's been in place already for four years and could well last another three or four and it's done on a rolling sort of permanent basis. So as I said, this is a strategic decision for medium to long term and it's not designed to be smart for this particular quarter or that particular quarter.
Wall: Thank you very much, Chris.
Taylor: Okay, pleasure.
Wall: This is Emma Wall for Morningstar. Thank you for watching.
