OREANDA-NEWS. October 06, 2016. Edison issues research review on Martin Currie Asia Unconstrained Trust (MCP)

Martin Currie Asia Unconstrained Trust (MCP) was launched in 1985 and in July 2014 adopted Martin Currie's Asia Long-Term Unconstrained (ALTU) strategy, aiming to generate returns in line with Asia-Pacific ex-Japan GDP growth, which generally has not been fully reflected in the region's equity market returns. Since ALTU's inception in 2008, it has demonstrated lower volatility than the market, capturing most of the upside in rising markets, while outperforming in falling markets. MCP has a wider discount than the peer group, which provides scope for it to narrow; its current dividend yield of 2.4% is attractive versus non income-mandated peers.

Having widened following the result of the UK's EU referendum, MCP's current share price discount to cum-income NAV of 17.0% is wider than the 15.1% average of the last 12 months and is wider than the averages of the last three, five and 10 years. There is scope for the discount to narrow if positive investment performance is maintained or investor demand for Asian equities increases. MCP has a progressive dividend policy and its current yield of 2.4% ranks favourably versus its peers.

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