Out of the last 29 years, Ed Rogers lived 21 in Japan, starting his Asian career in 1987 when he was awarded a Princeton in Asia Fellowship for Japan. As Deutsche Bank Tokyo’s Head of Prime Services Sales, Ed witnessed and helped the Asian hedge fund industry grow from fewer than 100 managers at the end of 2000 to the count of almost 1,000 today.
While at Deutsche Bank from 2001-2005, however, Ed Rogers noted that physical distance from the hedge fund managers who are trading the Asian markets is a tremendous due diligence barrier for the vast majority of investors. For example, Tokyo is a 14-hour flight from New York. London is a 12-hour flight, Singapore is 8 hours, and from Hong Kong it’s still a 5-hour journey to Tokyo. Language is another barrier for investors losing opportunities as they literally couldn’t understand them. So, for many global investors, Asia is “too far, too foreign, too small”.
In 2006 Ed Rogers set up Rogers Investment Advisors to bridge those gaps. With offices in Tokyo and Hong Kong, the firm is committed to conduct the most thorough due diligence on Asian hedge funds and to provide the highest level of access to new, existing, and closed managers in this space. Rogers is a strong believer in active management and it resulted in a superior track record over 10 years when Ed’s Japan Fund beat TOPIX by over 45%.
Ed Rogers – How The Asian Hedge Fund Industry Grew From A Few Dozen To Almost 1000 Managers
In this Opalesque.TV BACKSTAGE video, Ed also talks about:
- Japan’s recent historic cycles: 1987 until 2014.
- How Asia’s “incredible growth story” captured imagination and wallets of investors worldwide.
- The proven Alpha of Rogers’ fund: Only 1 down year (2011) but 5% up in 2008
- How to get better exposure to Asian Beta at “enormous” cost advantages.
- Roger’s 3rd fund targets double digit growth at very attractive conditions
- A custom approach as Investors come to Asia for different reasons.
- Why ETF’s don’t work to get good exposure to Asia.
- Time zone: – the biggest danger for overseas investors
- Why most people time Asia wrong.
Edward (Ed) Rogers is CEO and CIO of Tokyo-based Rogers Investment Advisors. Rogers Investment Advisors is registered with the Kanto Finance Bureau and regulated by Japan’s Financial Services Agency as a registered asset manager and investment advisor. Before setting up his own firm in 2006, Ed was Deutsche Bank Tokyo’s head of Prime Brokerage Sales and also a member of DB Tokyo’s Equities Management committee. Prior to joining DB Ed was a proprietary trader at Merrill Lynch in London, specializing in yield enhancement and corporate action arbitrage trades.
Ed Rogers’s Asian career began in 1987 when he was awarded a Princeton in Asia Fellowship for Japan. After working for two years at NKK, the then second largest steel company in Japan, Ed entered the booming foreign exchange and interest rate markets in Asia, working at M.W. Marshalls in Tokyo in the interest rate swap and currency forward areas. In 1993 Ed moved to Hong Kong for four years to run the regional Australian and Canadian swap product for M.W. Marshall.
Ed received a BA in History from Princeton University in 1987, and an MBA from Georgetown University in 1999.
