In a shareholder letter earlier this month seen by Investment Week, Matthews, which was renamed from Matthews Asia two months ago, said it would replace outgoing CIO Robert Horrocks, as well as portfolio managers Kenneth Lowe and Sharat Shroff, on the fund.
In their place, Taylor, who is set to begin in his new CIO role in January, has become a co-manager of the product.
Matthews Asia appoints CIO amid name change
Horrocks has managed the fund since November 2015, while Lowe and Shroff have managed it since January 2023. The fund is also managed by Inbok Song, Jeremy Sutch, Sherwood Zhang and Sojung Park.
The three outgoing managers will go through a transition period as they step down and shift their portfolio management responsibilities to the Matthews Pacific Tiger and Matthews Asia Dividend funds.
“Kenneth and Robert will continue to contribute research and company ideas to the portfolio as part of our highly collaborative investment team that leverages the collective intellectual capital of the team across all our portfolios,” the letter added.
Matthews Asia unveils three emerging market funds
The firm said these changes underscored its long-term commitment to the fund’s total return approach, which “is designed to provide a greater emphasis on alpha generation through bottom-up stock selection and the appropriate approach and tools to manage portfolio risk”.
The Matthews Asia ex Japan Total Return Equity fund was rebranded from Matthews Asia ex Japan Dividend fund in February this year.
