Insights

In December 2015, we published a paper looking at the need for infrastructure investment around the world and why we believed the private sector was going to be an integral component in how that growth would be funded.

This is the second in our series of ‘Trip Insights’, where we share those experiences. It follows a trip in September/October 2017 when Sarah Shaw, 4D’s Global Portfolio Manager and Chief Investment Officer, and Christopher James, 4D’s Investment Analyst, completed an extensive company engagement and calling program beginning in Hong Kong and continuing to Japan and the United States.

A cornerstone of our investment process is company management meetings and site visits. These meetings serve several purposes, including providing an insight into management—how they think and run their business—and whether management priorities align with ours as investors. Our Company Quality Grading process involves explicitly ranking company management, so first-hand contact is vital.

Greg Goodsell, Global Equity Strategist at 4D Infrastructure, examines the central tenets of this quote and how they suggest we are truly living in the Asian century.

If the President of the world’s most populous nation, with the second largest and one of the fastest growing economies, invites you to a huge economic growth party to reshape Asia that he will host and fund, and which he personally described as ‘the project of the century’ that will ‘add splendour to human civilisation’: would you attend?

The combination of defensive attributes, huge investment needs, and the diverse nature of available infrastructure assets, makes infrastructure investments an attractive allocation in both rising and falling markets, says Sarah Shaw, Chief Investment Officer at 4D Infrastructure.

In our September 2016 Global Matters ‘Young tiger stalks ageing dragon’ we compared and contrasted India and China in terms of their economic and social development. What was clear from that paper was the exceptional rates of economic growth achieved by both nations over the recent past. A product of that growth is the emergence of a more affluent middle class within each society.

4D Infrastructure’s Greg Goodsell (Global Equity Strategist) and Mark Jones (Senior Investment Analyst) compare and contrast NZ’s economic fortunes over the past decade with that of cross-ditch rival, Australia, asking the question: what can politicians in Australia learn from the NZ experience?

“Listed infrastructure offers real potential for investors looking for long-term, defensive investments with an attractive yield,” says Greg Goodsell of 4D Infrastructure. “And we believe the opportunity will expand rapidly over coming decades.