Topni's Asia Pacific long/short equity fund returns 15% in first three years, bets on small and mid cap stocks inefficiencies Jiyoung Kim

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva

The Topni Pacific Century Fund, L.P. is a fundamental long/short equity hedge fund managed by Ms. Jiyoung Kim in the firm that she founded in 2010, Topni Capital, in New York. A biochemistry graduate born in South Korea, Ms. Kim started investing in the global technology sector in the late 90s and transitioned to Asian equities a decade later. She worked at PIMCO, JK Capital and Royce Funds.

The fund was up 3.74% in December and 22.35% for the year. Incepted in late November 2010, the fund has returned 30% gross and 15.33% net since then, compared to 7% for the Morgan Stanley Asia-Pacific Index (MXAP) and 5% for the Morgan Stanley Asia-Pacific Small/Mid Cap Index.

It invests primarily in companies domiciled in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea (and at times in other Asia Pacific countries and Australasia) - and prefers small/mid-cap stocks in high value-add segments of the market (healthcare, technology, industrial, financial and consumer products and services). Kim places the fund's positions into four boxes to grade their level of confidence.

"The fund is really about investing in the emerging high value-added industries in Asia," Ms. Kim explains to Opalesque. "Asian investment strategies in the past were largely large cap, commodities, maybe telecom, utilities driven strategies. What we do is ferret out more of the high value-added industries that have been new in Asia in the last ten years or so, with the emergence of the middle class, the level of education and innovation.

"Because these industries are r......................

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This article was published in Opalesque's New Managers a top-down monthly analysis, news and research publication on the global emerging manager space.