- Business
- Morgan Stanley Investment Funds - Asian Equity Fund, listed on the Santiago Stock Exchange under the ticker MORASEI1, is an open-ended collective investment sub-fund of Morgan Stanley Investment Funds, an undertaking for collective investment in transferable securities (UCITS) organized as a Société d'Investissement à Capital Variable (SICAV). Established in 1996 and domiciled in Senningerberg, Luxembourg, the fund operates under the management of MSIM Fund Management (Ireland) Limited and Morgan Stanley Investment Management, the asset management arm of Morgan Stanley, which was founded in 1935 and is headquartered in New York, New York. The fund's primary business activity is delivering long-term capital appreciation by actively investing in a diversified portfolio of equity securities issued by companies established, listed, or operating predominantly in Asia, excluding Japan.
The fund offers a comprehensive range of investment solutions and share class structures designed for global institutional, wealth management, and retail clients. Its core product and service offerings comprise equity investment strategies focused on long-term capital growth; high-conviction fundamental equity portfolios targeting large-, mid-, and small-capitalization companies across emerging and developed Asian markets; sector-specific exposures encompassing semiconductors, information technology hardware and software, financial institutions, consumer discretionary goods, electric vehicle supply chains, clean energy, and industrial manufacturing; multi-currency share classes, including Class A retail accumulation and income distribution units; Class I institutional share classes providing lower expense structures for pension funds, sovereign wealth entities, and asset managers; and currency-hedged share class variants available in United States Dollars, Euros, and other major currencies to mitigate foreign exchange volatility. The fund's geographic investment scope covers Mainland China, Taiwan, South Korea, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, and other Southeast Asian nations, with international distribution reaching institutional and retail investors across Europe, Asia, and Latin America, including qualified authorization for Chilean pension funds and institutional brokerages.
In recent developments, the fund and its management group have undertaken several major strategic, operational, and structural updates to optimize portfolio performance and expand international distribution. Morgan Stanley Investment Management completed the operational and platform integration of acquired asset management franchises, including Eaton Vance, Calvert Research and Management, and Parametric Portfolio Associates, thereby strengthening the fund's research infrastructure, quantitative risk capabilities, and responsible investment screening. The fund has refined its portfolio positioning to capitalize on structural trends across Asia, increasing strategic weightings in semiconductor leaders, artificial intelligence hardware infrastructure, domestic consumer expansion in India, and renewable energy manufacturing. Furthermore, the fund has continuously updated its regulatory and sustainability frameworks in accordance with European Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) Article 8 requirements, implementing enhanced environmental, social, and governance integration processes across its stock selection criteria while broadening liquidity access through dual-registration and cross-border listings across Latin American capital markets, including the Santiago Stock Exchange.