QATAR & AUSTRALIAN Funds?

pjbltd

Does anyone know any funds (OIEC, Unit Trusts, SICAVs etc) that focus on:

Australia or Qatar?

These are two countries I wish to have exposure to.

I've seen two new fund launches from Investec and Franklin which focus on the Middle East but not predominantly Qatar.

Thanks

pjbltd

pjbltd

any ETFs of interest too? (seen Luxor have a new Kuwait one so may be Aussie or Qatar ones available)

jon3001

Qatar is a pretty small country - its GDP is on a similar level to Vodafone's revenues. I'd be surprised if there'd be a market for a fund focusing on such a small economy.

I've not come across anything specifically for Austrialia either. It tends to get lumped in with 'Asia-Pacific' funds.

What's the motivation for investing in these two countries? Qatar seems to be noted for its oil and gas while Austrialia is a commodity-rich country. You could get indirect exposure to these either via funds specialising in commodity futures or commodity producing stocks.

pjbltd

Vodafone's revenues are more than $27 billion??
My motivation is I believe both countries are going to have v. rapid growth. I know Qatar's GDP is predicted to overtake Luxembourg in a very small timeframe. I also like Australia and believe they have a solid economy and huge investments in infrastructure are taking place there.

I want the exposure to be directly on these two countries.

pjbltd

(these are simply my opinions)

jon3001

pjbltd wrote: »

Vodafone's revenues are more than $27 billion??

http://www.vodafone.com/etc/medialib/attachments/agm_2007.Par.59020.File.tmp/Vodafone_SFS_2007_web_0808.pdf
Page 24

Yes - much more. Reveue in 2007 was over £31.1 billion

pjbltd wrote: »

I want the exposure to be directly on these two countries.

Ok - good luck. Like I say, I've only seen Australia as an allocation within Asia-Pacific funds.

pjbltd

5bn net loss though, so not sure any point in comparing Rev of a firm to GDP.
interesting though thanks

Yes I've only seen Asia-Pacific Funds with some (sometimes minor) allocation to Australia. e.g. I have money in First State Asia Pacific Sustainability Fund which is 15% Australia but I want more exposure.

jon3001

Ok - found a couple of things that you can investigate further:

An AIM-listed company that invests primarily in quoted Qatari equities.
http://www.epicure-qatarequity.com/home/

An offshore fund (Baring Australia)
http://www.baring-asset.com/ret/fundfacts.hcst?FundType=OffshoreFunds

jon3001

pjbltd wrote: »

5bn net loss though, so not sure any point in comparing Rev of a firm to GDP.
interesting though thanks

This is tangential to the thread's topic so probably not worth dwelling on for too long. It's not uncommon for small economies to be compared to large companies or mega-wealthy individuals.

GDP is basically the total value of goods and services produced in a country in a given year.

I'm no economist but isn't the GDP going to correlate strongly to the sum of the revenues of all the companies in its economy?

pjbltd

jon3001 wrote: »

Ok - found a couple of things that you can investigate further:

An AIM-listed company that invests primarily in quoted Qatari equities.
http://www.epicure-qatarequity.com/home/

An offshore fund (Baring Australia)
http://www.baring-asset.com/ret/fundfacts.hcst?FundType=OffshoreFunds

Good work! How did you find these?

The Baring's fund looks a too bloated and expensive but that Qatar closed investment looks ideal, looks like a definite BUY! Plus it's trading below its NAV, bargain (except it's an unaudited NAV - is that a bad sign?). Who's going to join me on this boat, get in :money:

Out of interest when did the Baring name start getting used again after the bank collapsed?

jon3001

pjbltd wrote: »

Good work! How did you find these?

Well - I typed in 'Australia' and 'Qatar' into security searches such as those on Morning Star and Hargreaves Lansdown and took it from there

pjbltd wrote: »

The Baring's fund looks a too bloated and expensive but that Qatar closed investment looks ideal, looks like a definite BUY! Plus it's trading below its NAV, bargain (except it's an unaudited NAV - is that a bad sign?). Who's going to join me on this boat, get in :money:

I haven't looked too deeply to comment on the quality of the funds. My porfolio allocation isn't that fine-grained. But it's nice that those who do want to join the boat have some options!

As far as the NAV is concerned - I suppose the unaudited NAV is a function of the laxer accounting rules for AIM-listed securities. Maybe someone with more experience of AIM investing could comment?

pjbltd wrote: »

Out of interest when did the Baring name start getting used again after the bank collapsed?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barings_Bank#Aftermath
Looks like Baring Asset Management used to exist as a separate subsidiary from Barings Bank and the name was revived after ING sold on the entity in 2005.