DJE - Asia: Investing Where the World Is Growing

The global economic order is undergoing a profound transformation. The US remains the leading innovator and heavyweight capital market, and Europe continues to punch above its weight through strong niche players and premium manufacturers — but the demographic and economic growth story of the 21st century clearly belongs to Asia. Around 4.5 billion people live in the region, and its middle class is expanding fast, creating a consumer market of historic scale.

This structural shift is no short-term cyclical blip — it's the outcome of long-term megatrends: urbanisation, digitalisation, industrial catch-up, and rising domestic demand in countries such as China, India, Vietnam and Indonesia. Asian economies are, on average, growing markedly faster than Western industrialised nations, and that gap looks set to persist structurally.

Anyone who wants a stake in the wealth creation of the coming decades can't afford to overlook Asia-Pacific. That's precisely where DJE – Asia comes in: rather than casting a wide, indiscriminate net, it captures the region's opportunities by handpicking companies with substance and long-term earnings potential.

DJE – Asia is managed by Dr. Jan Ehrhardt, named Fund Manager of the Year in 2025.* He has run the fund since its 2008 launch and champions an investment process that pairs top-down perspective with bottom-up depth — a structured macro overlay combined with rigorous single-stock analysis.

In the first stage, the DJE strategy team assesses major investment regions and sectors through a macroeconomic lens — money supply growth, credit conditions, inflation trends, trend patterns and market sentiment. This produces recommendations on country and sector weightings.

The second stage is targeted stock selection. The team looks for companies with stable earnings, solid balance sheets, strong competitive positioning and attractive dividend potential. Before any stock enters the portfolio, it runs through a multi-step scoring process covering business model, management quality, valuation, price momentum and ESG criteria. Direct company engagement — face-to-face meetings with management — is a core part of the analysis.

Dividend stocks are a particular focus: Asian companies, especially in markets like Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore, have traditionally paid above-average dividends — the average dividend yield across Asia-Pacific stands at 2.7%, versus 1.9% in the US and 3.4% in Europe.** Reinvesting these payouts unlocks a meaningful compounding effect over time, which becomes a key driver of total return in the long run.

DJE – Asia combines several strengths that set it apart as an Asia play:

• Access to a structural growth region: Asia benefits from demographics, industrialisation, digitalisation and rising domestic consumption.

• Quality focus, not index-hugging: the fund invests in companies that, in the fund management's view, are fundamentally strong, with stable earnings and market-leading positions.

• An active, proven investment process: combining the FMM top-down approach with rigorous bottom-up analysis creates a disciplined selection process.

• Dividends as a return driver: the focus on high-dividend names can support both current income and long-term wealth accumulation.

• Broad diversification within Asia: the fund provides access to a range of markets and growth drivers across Asia-Pacific.

• Independent stock selection: DJE invests based on its own, consistent capital markets view.

The fund suits investors with a medium- to long-term horizon who can tolerate volatility and want their equity exposure tilted toward high-quality, dividend-paying names.

As with any regionally focused equity fund, risks apply: the value of an investment and the income from it can rise or fall. Investors may not get back the full amount invested. Share prices can fluctuate significantly due to market, currency and stock-specific factors. Asian equities will not necessarily outperform global equities. There are also country and credit risks, as well as currency risk for euro-based investors, since a large portion of the portfolio is denominated in foreign currencies.

The DJE – Asia is more than a regional equity fund — it's a focused vehicle for capturing Asian markets, built for investors who want to participate in the economic power shift toward Asia-Pacific. With its quality- and dividend-driven approach, active stock-picking, and broad diversification across Asia, the fund offers a disciplined, long-term route into one of the world's most compelling economic regions.

Future growth is increasingly being made in Asia. DJE – Asia is there to help investors capture it.