Witan Pacific Investment Trust plc (“Witan Pacific”) (“the Trust”), an Investment Trust with a broad Asia Pacific investment policy - including the ability to invest in Japan - announces the appointment of two new managers within its multi-manager investment structure: Matthews International Capital Management (“Matthews”) and MW GaveKal Asia Limited (“MW GaveKal”). The Board’s decision  reflects its objective to seek to enhance returns to shareholders by accessing a wider range of opportunities across the region.

A broad range of managers was reviewed in a formal search process. Following careful analysis of their different characteristics and their potential effects on the overall portfolio, Matthews and MW GaveKal were selected. They replace Nomura Asset Management U.K. Limited Management (“Nomura”).  The other existing manager, Aberdeen Asset Managers Limited (“Aberdeen”) remains.

Matthews and MW GaveKal will manage circa 35% and 10% respectively of the Trust’s assets. Aberdeen will continue to manage the balance of the portfolio (approximately 55%), with a fundamental investment style emphasising the identification of good quality companies on low valuations relative to their growth potential.

Matthews is a leading Asian investment specialist based in San Francisco and currently manages USD17.8bn in Asia Pacific equities and bonds. Matthews will manage their portion of the Trust’s assets in accordance with the firm’s Asia Dividend Strategy. MW GaveKal is a Hong Kong based joint venture between Marshall Wace LLP and GaveKal holdings and manages country specific and Asia Pacific regional portfolios with assets under management in excess of USD1bn.

Using these three distinctive managers creates a unique investment blend for the Trust’s portfolio.  Their unconstrained approaches create portfolios which are independent of individual companies’ and markets’ weighting in the regional indices. For example, the Japan weighting with the new combination of managers is currently less than that of the Greater China region (incorporating China, Hong Kong and Taiwan), in contrast to the dominant Japanese market weighting in the regional benchmark index.

Each manager has a distinct investment approach:

• Aberdeen - Stock specific, unconstrained, growth at an attractive price
• Matthews - Stock specific, unconstrained, long-term strategy blending yield with growth potential

• MW GaveKal – Unconstrained, actively managing exposure to equities, bonds and cash

Gillian Nott, Chairman of the Witan Pacific Investment Trust Board said:

“Following a careful review conducted in conjunction with a specialist external fund selection consultant (bfinance), the Board has decided to appoint Matthews and MW GaveKal. They will manage the portion of the portfolio previously allocated to Nomura. While making this change, the Board would like to record its thanks to the managers at Nomura for their service to our shareholders in outperforming the benchmark index since 2005. 

We believe this provides shareholders with a truly exciting combination of active managers – Aberdeen, whose quality stock picking approach has already been very successful for the Trust, will be joined by Matthews, who will focus on choosing companies which offer attractive earnings growth and dividend paying characteristics, and MW GaveKal who combine stock selection with an active approach to asset allocation between bonds, cash and equities.

In Aberdeen, Matthews and MW GaveKal we have a blend of strong managers with distinctive and successful records who will seek to deliver a well-diversified, balanced portfolio with an attractive mix of quality, growth and dividend yield. The appointment of Matthews, with its focus on dividend growth, is expected to increase the overall portfolio yield and with it the scope to support the Trust's dividend growth policy. The inclusion of MW GaveKal provides the potential to reduce the absolute volatility of the trust, particularly in down markets.” 

- ENDS -

For further information please contact:

Andrew Bell

Witan Investment Services Limited

Tel: 020 7227 9770

Andrew.bell@witan.co.uk

James Frost

Witan Investment Services Limited

Tel: 020 7227 9770

James.frost@witan.co.uk

Jain Castiau

Cauldron Consulting

Tel: 020 3178 7236/07909 963 969

Jain.castiau@cauldron-consulting.com

Notes to Editors

Witan Pacific Investment Trust plc

Witan Pacific Investment Trust is an investment trust with a broad Asia Pacific investment policy (including the ability to invest in Japan), with Net Assets of £169m (Source: AIC as at 31.03.2012). The Trust moved to a multi-manager structure on 27 May 2005 with Witan Investment Services as Executive Manager. The Trust’s benchmark is the MSCI AC Asia Pacific Free Index (£). For further information visit www.witanpacific.com

Witan Pacific will announce its final results for the year ended 31 January 2012 towards the end of April. 

Aberdeen

Aberdeen Asset Managers Limited was established in Asia in 1992 and at 31 January 2012 managed some £61.5bn of funds in the region. The 38 investment specialists in the equity team, led by Hugh Young, follow a fundamental investment style emphasising the identification of good quality companies on low valuations relative to their growth potential. These companies are considered likely to deliver above average growth in earnings and dividends over the long-term.  

Matthews

Matthews International Capital Management is an independent, privately owned firm, which is the largest dedicated Asia-only investment specialist in the US, based in San Francisco. At 31 March 2012, Matthews had USD17.8 billion in assets under management. Matthews employs a fundamental, bottom-up investment process that seeks to identify companies with sustainable long-term growth prospects, strong business models, quality management teams and reasonable valuations. Matthews will seek to invest its portion of the Trust in companies that are paying high dividends relative to their current share price, or are well positioned to do so in the future.

MW GaveKal

Marshall Wace GaveKal Asia Limited is a joint venture established in 2008 in Hong Kong between Marshall Wace LLP (a global asset manager founded in 1997 offering a diverse set of alternative, long-only and bespoke investment solutions to a broad range of investors) and GaveKal (an independent investment research provider formed by Charles and Louis-Vincent Gave and Anatole Kaletsky in 1999). MW GaveKal Asia employs an absolute return strategy which tactically invests in Asian equities, bonds and cash, aiming for significant outperformance of the MSCI AC Asia Pacific regional index.

Geographical analysis – Old portfolio vs. New portfolio % as at 31^st March 2012

^†Source: BNP Paribas

^†† Source: Composite of 55% Aberdeen portfolio (source: Aberdeen)/35% Matthews Transition portfolio (source WIS)/10% MW GaveKal Asian Opportunities UCITS Fund

Witan Pacific Investment Trust performance

Outperformance of the benchmark by 19.1% since the introduction of Witan Pacific’s multi-manager approach in 2005 (net asset value on a total return basis).

Source: Datastream, percentage growth Total Return to 31.03.2012

Manager Performance Table to 31 March 2012

*Source: WM Group. Performance not including fees.    

**Source: Source:  JP Morgan.  Based on the Matthews Asia Dividend UCITS Fund, USD Class Accumulation shares.  Net of fees. The Matthews Asia Dividend UCITS fund was incepted on April 30, 2010.  For regulatory reasons the performance figures for Matthews US based Asia Dividend fund may not be reproduced here.

*** Source: MW GaveKal, based on MW GaveKal Asian Opportunities UCITS Fund. Net of fees, rebased in sterling (£).

Witan Investment Services Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Witan Investment Trust plc. 

Witan Pacific Investment Trust plc is registered as an Investment Company in England No 91798.