Bolton will relocate to Hong Kong to run the fund, and is clearly bullish on the market: “I firmly believe that China is the investment opportunity of the next decade. I have been a regular visitor to China since 2004, when I started meeting and investing in Chinese companies. After spending the last few months in Asia, I have become increasingly excited by the prospect of managing a portfolio investing in the tremendous growth potential of China. I plan to relocate to Hong Kong in the early part of 2010
in readiness for a launch around the end of March.”
The firm is no stranger to the region: Fidelity has been in Hong Kong since 1981 and has had a mainland China office since 2004. The house currently offers three China-related funds in Europe: Fidelity Funds - China Focus, run by veteran investor Martha Wang, Fidelity Funds - Greater China, managed by Wilson Wong, and Fidelity World Greater China. Morningstar's team of qualitative analysts have awarded China Focus a rating of Superior, noting Wang's strength as a manager and the research capabilities at her disposal. Click here to read the full four page report.
Bolton has not run China money before, but his record running UK and European equities is staggeringly strong (and he did include small doses of China stocks in those portfolios at times). At Fidelity Special Situations, he delivered returns of 19.5% per annum from the launch in December 1979 through the end of 2007, when he handed the fund off to Sanjeev Shah. Since stepping down from the fund, Bolton has focussed on mentoring the firm's managers and analysts and has also often served as the public face of Fidelity in the UK. Although his presence in that role will be missed, Morningstar analysts have noted that the new crop of UK managers seems strong and view positively the changes the firm has made to its training regime.