Matthews Asia, the Asia only investment firm, has launched a new income fund.

Managed by Teresa Kong and Gerald Hwang and Satya Patel, the Matthews Asia Strategic Income Fund will invest primarily in bonds and other debt securities of Asian corporate and sovereign issuers.

Matthews believes that the growth of Asia’s bond markets has been one of the region’s most important economic developments during the past decade. Given significant structural reforms that have led to the expansion of capital markets, the opportunity now exists for investors to further diversify their fixed income portfolios and potentially enhance their risk-adjusted returns through dedicated allocations to Asia fixed income.

"Investors’ fixed income portfolios tend to be underinvested in Asia since widely used global debt benchmarks generally allocate to the most indebted countries as opposed to the most creditworthy," said Teresa Kong, Lead Portfolio Manager.

"Dedicated Asian fixed income allocations enable investors to potentially create a more diversified exposure across interest rate, credit and currency while enhancing the overall risk-return profile of a fixed income portfolio. We aim to achieve this at Matthews Asia, by taking an active, bottom-up approach in order to identify the most attractive securities to construct a portfolio based on our assessment of creditworthiness, interest rate cycle and potential for currency appreciation," she added.