Asian ex-Japan Equity Fund

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Overview

Manager's Outlook

Our long-term outlook for Asia ex-Japan equities remains constructive despite the economic headwinds to global financial markets brought about by rising interest rates, higher inflation, and the impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. This is supported by our belief that the long-term trends in Asia ex-Japan that will potentially enhance the depth and breadth of the region's investment universe remain intact.

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The substitution of imports with local products and services, strength of domestic consumption, and rising intra-regional trade are among the long-term trends in Asia ex-Japan that we believe continue to offer attractive investment opportunities. We think that the Russia-Ukraine conflict has served to underline the benefits of self-sufficiency among companies and import substitution in a less globalized world.

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We recognize that the lingering conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the ensuing sanctions by the West have increased uncertainty for the global economy. Though the Asia Pacific region has been spared the worst of the humanitarian crisis resulting from the fighting, the region is not immune to the conflict's immediate spillover effects in the form of higher energy and commodity prices. However, we believe that our focus on investment opportunities with pricing power will help our holdings defend their margins and offset inflationary pressures.

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We are cautiously optimistic about China, where the sell-off has lifted the implied risk premium. But it also reduced valuations to more attractive levels and opened up opportunities for us to own growth companies that were previously too expensive. We look favorably on the efforts of the government and the central bank to support the economy as it starts to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 lockdowns, including measures to finance infrastructure projects to drive investments and increase employment.�

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We think that Asia appears to be better positioned to stave off slowing growth and rising inflation due to the strength of its domestic consumption. The reopening of these economies amid easing COVID-19 restrictions in the region should bolster domestic demand. Some parts of Asia, such as India and southeast Asian countries including Vietnam and Thailand, may benefit from deglobalization and the shift in the region's manufacturing base over the longer term.

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Amid the ongoing macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges, we continue to set our sights on finding potential market leaders or those companies with secular growth prospects and resilient fundamentals. Businesses that will likely benefit from the heightened focus on environmental protection, increased industrial infrastructure spending, and innovative businesses that can compete globally are areas of interest. In China, we are positive about the dynamism and depth of the market as businesses continue to climb the innovation curve, providing active investors with new opportunities.

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While the coronavirus remains a concern, there are reasons for optimism. Fiscal and current account balances across the Asia ex-Japan region are generally sound, in our view. While major central banks have embarked on a tightening cycle, China has the will and the capacity for monetary and fiscal easing, providing liquidity to stabilize growth, as evidenced by recent measures.

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We remain vigilant in monitoring key risks for the portfolio including potential future coronavirus variants, prolonged COVID-induced lockdowns, geopolitical instability, supply chain disruption, and more severe enforcement of Chinese regulations that may lead to a sharper-than-expected slowdown in the economy.

Strategy

Fund Summary

As an Asia-based investment team, we employ an unconstrained approach where fundamental research is key. We look to identify reasonably priced companies with compelling business models and quality management teams in industries conducive to sustainable growth. The promotion of environmental and/or social characteristics is achieved through the fund's commitment to maintain at least 10% of the value of its portfolio invested in Sustainable Investments, as defined by the SFDR. Additionally, we apply a proprietary responsible screen (exclusion list). The manager is not constrained by the fund’s benchmark, which is used for performance comparison purposes only.

Investment Association Sector:

Asia Pacific Excluding Japan

30-Jun-2022 - Anh Lu, Portfolio Manager,

We continue to seek companies that we believe will turn out to be market share gainers and earnings compounders. We look for high-quality innovative types of business and those with durable growth prospects that can embrace change and capture opportunities in rapidly evolving environments. Our portfolio positioning remains bottom-up driven.

During the quarter, we reduced our exposure to cyclical stocks with global exposure and focused on domestic-oriented businesses with more attractive valuations, especially in China. These global cyclical stocks are likely to get hit as the pandemic-driven demand in the U.S., Europe, and other parts of the world starts to normalize while the rise in energy prices will likely compound the recessionary risk. We favored those stocks operating in competitive environments which we believe are able to manage inflationary pressures.� We used the weakness in "green theme" names to add to the environmental protection ideas we held in the portfolio.

China

We found more opportunities in China. Concerns about China eased as investors shifted their attention to the recessionary risks facing the U.S. and other parts of the world. Low valuations and the opportunity in stocks that are returning back to long-term levels after the period of market dislocation continued to help us in China. Valuations of "green theme" names and the electric vehicle sector were stretched until the market selloff, which provided us with the opportunity to buy shares of environmental protection companies. We maintained our preference to invest in new areas of growth such as companies with improved manufacturing technology and novel internet business models. During the quarter, we also bought shares in names that we believe are in a position to withstand inflationary pressures given their pricing power and improved competitive environment.

We purchased shares of Tingyi (Cayman), an attractively valued food and beverage maker whose margins we think can benefit from a potential normalization of raw material costs beyond 2022 as well as an improving competitive environment within the instant noodle industry. We think it may be able to sustain a high single-digit dividend yield over the next three to four years. Aside from its rich dividend yield, its beverage price hikes can potentially be a positive catalyst for the stock.
We took advantage of share price weakness and bought shares of Tsingtao Brewery. We believe that the market underappreciates the brewer's premium portfolio and the product momentum driven by increasing interest in domestic brands. We think that the company will continue to benefit from the premiumization trend and pricing discipline.

IT

In IT, we sold some of our holdings in stocks with global exposure including semiconductor names. While we continue to own companies that are global leaders and content share gainers, we are more selective and cautious toward the semiconductor sector as we recognize that when the chip shortage reverses, inventory levels may potentially turn out to be excessive after the surge in orders. Still, we believe that the semiconductor positions we own have good long-term growth opportunities.

Samsung Electronics is one of the world's largest memory chip makers. We sold some shares of the company and remain underweight relative to the benchmark as we believe there will be better memory margin stability from 2023 following the sector's downturn.

Financials

In financials, we diversified our exposure in the sector where our holdings include private Indian banks with quality lending franchises.

We bought shares of HDFC Life Insurance, a high-quality insurer that is taking market share in an under-penetrated market, thanks to strong execution and solid branding. We think it has one of the best track records among private insurers with a balanced product mix and distribution capability. The insurer will likely benefit from the secular shift towards higher margin, protection-based product.
ICICI Bank is a private Indian lender. We bought shares of the company as we think it is well-positioned to accelerate loan growth and gain market share as it has addressed its asset quality issues.
We took advantage of share price weakness to buy Ping An Insurance as the Chinese life insurer may benefit from the easing of COVID-19 restrictions. We think there is still substantial market opportunity in health insurance in China. The focus of policymakers towards growth should also be supportive of the sector.

Industrials and Business Services

Within industrials and business services, we found opportunities in electric vehicle-related names and companies with a strong environmental, social, and governance theme.

We bought shares in Sungrow Power Supply, one of the world's largest solar and wind inverters suppliers, which gets half of its revenue from China and the other half from overseas. In our view, the company will likely gain from the potential increase in solar installation demand following President Biden's decision in June to waive tariffs on solar panels from four Southeast Asian nations where U.S. utility operators traditionally source their solar modules.
Zhejiang Hangke Tech is a lithium battery back-end equipment supplier. We purchased shares in the company because we believe it will likely benefit from margin recovery, driven by the strong capital expenditure cycle ahead in the global lithium battery industry. Major lithium battery manufacturers have announced capacity expansions driven by strong demand from electric vehicles (EV) and energy storage systems.� Hangke's order backlog acceleration and margin recovery will likely be driven by the capex cycle of Korean battery makers, which are among its major clients.
Zhejiang Sanhua is a maker of thermal management components used in home appliances and automobiles. We bought shares because we believe the company will benefit from rising EV penetration.

Real Estate

We are selective about investing in property developers and prefer to invest in property management and platform companies that are well placed to benefit from policy easing in China. We favor well-run companies that are compliant with regulations. During the quarter, we found opportunity in the sector.

We bought shares of Hongkong Land, which owns and manages prime commercial properties in the Central Business District of Hong Kong, due to its attractive valuations and the potential return of demand should borders reopen. Hongkong Land is part of the cash-rich Jardine Group which has a lot of room to increase dividends and buybacks, in our view. We picked Hongkong Land as the company appears most committed to capital management going forward.

Team

Anh Lu,
Fund Manager

Anh Lu is a portfolio manager in the Equity Division and lead portfolio manager for the Asia ex-Japan Equity Strategy.

Fund Manager since

2009

Years at
T. Rowe Price

Years investment experience

Robert Secker,
Portfolio Specialist

Robert Secker is a portfolio specialist representing the firm’s Asian and Chinese equity strategies to institutional clients, consultants, and prospects in the Equity Division.

Years at T. Rowe Price

Years investment experience

Benchmark Data Source: MSCI. MSCI index returns are shown with reinvestment of dividends after the deduction of withholding taxes. MSCI and its affiliates and third party sources and providers (collectively, “MSCI”) makes no express or implied warranties or representations and shall have no liability whatsoever with respect to any MSCI data contained herein. The MSCI data may not be further redistributed or used as a basis for other indices or any securities or financial products. This report is not approved, reviewed, or produced by MSCI. Historical MSCI data and analysis should not be taken as an indication or guarantee of any future performance analysis, forecast or prediction. None of the MSCI data is intended to constitute investment advice or a recommendation to make (or refrain from making) any kind of investment decision and may not be relied on as such.

Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

Source for performance: T. Rowe Price. Fund performance is calculated using the official NAV with dividends reinvested, if any. The value of an investment and any income from it can go down as well as up. Investors may get back less than the amount invested. It will be affected by changes in the exchange rate between the base currency of the fund and the subscription currency, if different. Sales charges (up to a maximum of 5% for the A Class), taxes and other locally applied costs have not been deducted and if applicable, they will reduce the performance figures.

Daily performance data is based on the latest available NAV.

The Funds are sub-funds of the T. Rowe Price Funds SICAV, a Luxembourg investment company with variable capital which is registered with Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier and which qualifies as an undertaking for collective investment in transferable securities (“UCITS”). Full details of the objectives, investment policies and risks are located in the prospectus which is available with the key investor information documents and/or key information document (KID) in English and in an official language of the jurisdictions in which the Funds are registered for public sale, together with the articles of incorporation and the annual and semi-annual reports (together “Fund Documents”). Any decision to invest should be made on the basis of the Fund Documents which are available free of charge from the local representative, local information/paying agent or from authorised distributors. They can also be found along with a summary of investor rights in English at www.troweprice.com. The Management Company reserves the right to terminate marketing arrangements.

Please note that the Fund typically has a risk of high volatility.

Hedged share classes (denoted by 'h') utilise investment techniques to mitigate currency risk between the underlying investment currency(ies) of the fund and the currency of the hedged share class. The costs of doing so will be borne by the share class and there is no guarantee that such hedging will be effective.

The specific securities identified and described in this website do not represent all of the securities purchased, sold, or recommended for the sub-fund and no assumptions should be made that the securities identified and discussed were or will be profitable.

Attribution Data: Analysis represents the total performance of the portfolio as calculated by the FactSet attribution model and is inclusive of other assets that that will not receive a classification assignment in the detailed structure shown. Returns will not match official T. Rowe Price performance because FactSet uses different exchange rate sources and does not capture intra-day trading. Performance for each security is obtained in the local currency and, if necessary, is converted to U.S. dollars using an exchange rate determined by an independent third party. Figures are shown with gross dividends reinvested.

Sources: Copyright © 2021 FactSet Research Systems Inc. All rights reserved. MSCI/S&P GICS Sectors; Analysis by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. T. Rowe Price uses the MSCI/S&P Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) for sector and industry reporting. Each year, MSCI and S&P make changes to the GICS structure. The last change occurred on September 28, 2018. T. Rowe Price will adhere to all future updates to GICS for prospective reporting.

The Global Industry Classification Standard ("GICS") was developed by and is the exclusive property and a service mark of Morgan Stanley Capital International Inc, ("MSCI") and Standard & Poor's, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. ("S&P") and is licensed for use by [Licensee]. Neither MSCI, S&P nor any third party involved in making or compiling the GICS or any GICS classifications makes any express or impIied warranties or representations with respect to such standard or classification (or the results to be obtained by the use thereof), and all such parties hereby expressly disclaim all warranties of originality, accuracy, completeness, merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose with respect to any or such standard or classification, Without limiting any or the foregoing, in no event shall MSCI, S&P, any of their affiliates or any third party involved in making or compiling the GICS or any GICS classifications have any liability for any direct, indirect, special, punitive, consequential or any other damages (including lost profits) even if notified of the possibility of such damages.

A full list of the currently issued Share Classes including Distributing, Hedged, and Accumulating Categories may be obtained, free of charge and upon request, from the registered office of the Company.

Citywire Data Source: Citywire – where the fund manager is rated by Citywire, the rating is based on the manager’s 3-year risk adjusted performance. For further information on ratings methodology, please visit www.aboutcitywire.com.

©2023 Morningstar, Inc. All rights reserved. The information contained herein: (1) is proprietary to Morningstar and/or its content providers; (2) may not be copied or distributed; and (3) is not warranted to be accurate, complete, or timely. Neither Morningstar nor its content providers are responsible for any damages or losses arising from any use of this information. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

China

IT

Financials

Industrials and Business Services

Real Estate

Risks

Typical Investor

Commentary for