Managing Partners, an investment company that manages funds investing in life settlements, says it is encountering a groundswell of investor interest in Asia after becoming the first company to have a life settlement fund authorised for distribution to institutions in South Korea.
Managing Partners’ Traded Policies Fund has been filed with the Financial Services Commission in South Korea and was registered as of December 2009, authorising it to be distributed to institutions.
Managing Partners is also in advanced discussions with two asset management companies in Korea with a view to launching feeder funds into the fund.
Jeremy Leach, Managing Partners’ managing director, and Harvey Athwal, sales director for Asia, have also just completed a tour of 55 pension schemes in Tokyo and Osaka, where they presented on the benefits of the fund and life settlements as an asset class.
Managing Partners has signed a distribution deal with a Japanese asset management company that will distribute the fund in Japan.
Life settlements are US-issued, whole of life assurance policies sold before the maturity date to allow the original owner to enjoy some of the benefits during their lifetime.
Leach says: “Asia is proving to be a key market for us with intense interest from investors in several countries, but particularly Japan and Korea. We are finding that liability driven investment is becoming increasingly important to pension funds in Asia, which appreciate the steady, incremental returns that life settlements offer as an asset class, irrespective of what is happening elsewhere on financial markets. Investors only have to look at how life settlement funds performed during the financial crisis of the last two years to see that they truly proved themselves in some of the most difficult conditions imaginable.”
The Traded Policies Fund is available as institutional share classes in Japanese Yen, US dollar, Euro and Sterling denominations. Growth share classes, which are suitable for retail investors, are available in Japanese Yen, US dollar, Euro, Sterling and Swedish Krona.
