The Asia Opportunity: Dr Joseph Lai (Founder of Ox Capital)
Investing in Asia (especially emerging markets) seems like a no-brainer given the region’s high economic growth rates and rapid digitisation. For example, if you were lucky enough to invest in Chinese tech companies in the early 2000s, you would be sitting on a beach somewhere sipping piña coladas:
- Softbank’s $20 million investment into Alibaba in 2000 turned into ~$140 billion
- Nasper’s $32 million investment into Tencent in 2001 turned into ~$200 billion
Since many of us missed out on investing in this wave of tech companies, I contacted Dr Joseph Lai (founder of Ox Capital) to get his views on the current investment opportunities in Asia & emerging markets.
About Dr Joseph Lai & Ox Capital
Dr Joseph Lai
I first came across Dr Lai when he was the lead Portfolio Manager of Platinum Asia as I was an investor in one of his ASX-listed funds.
To my knowledge, he is one of the few Asia-focused fund managers in Australia that is actually of Asian descent. Born in Hong Kong, Dr Lai came to Australia at a young age, and after becoming a medical doctor, he realised that a career in investing & finance was much more interesting.
He was with Platinum for 17 years, building a successful track record in investing in Asian equities, before deciding to start Ox Capital in 2021.
Ox Capital
Ox Capital Management (OxCap) is an Australian-based boutique investment manager specialising in emerging market equities. OxCap brings together a team of experienced emerging market investors led by Dr Joseph Lai.
OxCap’s investment approach is to identify the immense positive changes taking place in emerging markets and to find companies that benefit from those trends that are trading at a discount to OxCap’s assessment of intrinsic value.
Find out more here: https://www.oxcapm.com/
Topics & Timestamps
This video is in a slightly different format from what I’ve been producing earlier, with a heavier focus on overlaying stock footage to keep viewers engaged.
It might have worked out better as a podcast Q&A but let me know what you think of the format. Topics & timestamps are as follows:
- 0:00 – Introduction
- 2:23 – Current state of China (slowing growth?)
- 5:35 – The nuances of investing in China & crackdowns
- 7:40 – The Indonesia opportunity
- 8:35 – Stock Highlight Indonesia – Mitra Adiperkasa (IDX: MAPI)
- 10:15 – Stock Highlight China – AK Medical (HKG: 1789)
- 12:43 – Are Semiconductor Stocks overhyped?
- 14:02 – Energy Stocks (ESG, Natural Gas, Carbon Neutral)
- 15:30 – Inflation & Recession
- 16:52 – Dr Lai’s Career (from Doctor to Finance)
- 20:13 – Is a career in investing for you? Advice for young people
