Simon Edelsten, co-manager of the Artemis Global Select Fund (GB00B5QKCK29), says he has recently reinvested in Hutchison Whampoa (13:HKG) - a multinational conglomerate which employs a quarter of a million people in 52 countries across the world. Hutchison Whampoa's interests include ports, property, hotels, retail, infrastructure, energy, telecommunications, finance and investments. You can find data on the company here.
"We have bought Hutchison Whampoa, Hong Kong businessman and investor Li Ka Shing's holding company, and its shares have barely moved since we launched this fund nearly two years ago. We prefer at current market levels to be in investments with greater margins of safety.
"Li Ka Shing has moderated the risks in his holding company after it overinvested in European mobile phones (Three in the UK) in the technology, media and telecoms (TMT) years. The company has also reduced its exposure to ports through a Singapore flotation. The largest assets now are a global utilities business, Cheung Kong Infrastructure (which snapped up Northumbrian Water and Southern Electricity after the banking crisis), and Asia's largest chain of beauticians and pharmacies.
"[Given Asia's] wealthy ageing population this seems a fine investment for the future. As Hutchison is an unfashionable conglomerate it trades at a discount, we estimate, of over 25 per cent to the sum of its parts. More conventionally it trades on 14 times earnings and yields about 2.5 per cent. This seems a high-quality investment giving long-term exposure to this large and still fast-growing economy. Overall, the fund's exposure to China has risen to around 6 per cent of assets, using some of our profits from last year's investments in the Philippines and Laos. Clearly this is not a large exposure compared with our exposure to the US or Japan."
Mr Edelston says he has sold the fund's holdings in Metropolitan Bank in the Philippines and Kolao, the main car importer into Laos, for healthy profits.
