A £30M EMERGING markets trust that is only a year old has moved to buy the underperforming £600m Abrdnmanaged Asia Dragon trust.

Ashoka Whiteoak Emerging Markets, which launched in May of last year, is seeking to buy the Asia Dragon trust, which launched in 1987.

In a stock exchange announcement,

Ashoka's trust said it had put forward a proposal to merge the two trusts, with the option of a cash exit of up to 50 per cent for Asia Dragon shareholders.

The move for a comparably tiny young trust to buy one from a giant like Abrdn, which runs the third oldest investment trust in the world, is definitely a surprising move, but Ashoka's board said it had already received support in principle from 56 per cent of Asia

Dragon shareholders.

The Asia Dragon trust is the worstperforming large-cap trust in the Asia sector, having lost around 24 per cent in the last three years compared to a three per cent drop in the index and an 11.5 per cent drop in its peer group.

Martin Shenfield, chair of Ashoka's trust, said: "Sadly, we have not received any meaningful engagement with the board of Asia Dragon."

(c) 2024 City A.M., source Newspaper