Nomura’s GMT headed for Malaysia

THINK investment fund companies, and one’s mind might be directed to some of the world’s largest and most powerful global asset managers.

Now, Nomura Asset Management Malaysia Sdn Bhd may not always be the loudest voice in the room, but its performance has consistently spoken for itself.

As at September 2025, the firm has managed RM41.6bil in investments.

The parent company, Nomura Asset Management, had an interesting start in the late 1800s when Tokushichi Nomura I set up a money changing business in Osaka, before growing that into a leading financial services group with a global network spanning over 30 countries.

In Malaysia, the firm has supported major institutional investors, including pension funds, insurers and corporate clients through multiple economic cycles.

One particular fund that has stood out is the Global Multi-Theme (GMT) Equity Strategy, led by specialists who focus on rigorous stock selection.

StarBiz 7 sat with GMT global portfolio manager Rika Naito who explained what makes it so successful, and when Malaysia can expect it to head to our shores.

She explains the fund began back in Japan 13 years ago before it was launched on the Nomura retail channel.

Rika herself has been in the team for about 10 years, and says they began to see its opportunities and strong potential in the fund.

“We initially saw some investment by corporates, we had a German and Canadian client. So, that was sort of our first pillar of investors from the institutional side. Gradually, we saw more Japanese institutional clients as well as insurance companies investing into this fund,” she says.

According to Rika, the fund’s performance was what one might call fairly decent – at a 3.4% per annum outperformance, thus outperforming the index.

The gist of the fund was to focus on looking for future growth themes through innovations or major global trends.

At the moment, there are eight themes, down from 10 after going through a reclassification in November 2023.

The core themes are sorted into high-growth themes that can incur significant changes but offer strong growth potential.

These include new technology, artificial intelligence/data science, technological solutions and entertainment/experiences.

The second bucket is for themes that are labelled stable-growth themes including global ageing, established brands, Internet of Things/reshoring and demographic dividend.

Rika says since the fund’s inception, the themes have changed three times, and undergoes an evaluation every three to five years.

This, she says, helps them determine how diverse they can be, or how flexible they want the themes to cover.

She picks out the entertainment/experiences theme, stating that they didn’t have any prior exposure, but were pleasantly surprised at its growth factor.

“This sharing of experiences is becoming more widely known. For instance, live performances are fast becoming a big trend in the music industry. Many people are choosing this rather than buying or downloading music,” she says.

Another interesting experience under this theme is cruises, whereby one can see some big names in the sector, backed by a sufficient amount of money to build and run a cruise ship.

“It isn’t just senior people that are travelling or taking cruises as holidays. Big families are going, and people are travelling more to the Caribbean Islands, Miami and places like that,” Rika says.

Moving on to one of the main things that might pique an investor’s interest – how GMT stands against its peers.

Rika says GMT’s edge is that the fund has a growth mandate, where only themes with growth characteristics are chosen.

“In an upside market, data shows its 106% which is reasonable for a growth mandate. But I think it is also important to note that the downside market capture ratio is 89%. This means combining both the high-growth and stable-growth themes, it allows us to have a protectionism in numbers,” she explains.

So what does this mean?

An investor in GMT is given an advantageous risk-return profile where the internal rate of return ratio is better than its peers.

Rika says should they want to reduce the risk over a particular portfolio, they will utilise the stable-growth themes more.

“I think this is an edge in the global equity space, and also for a thematic fund because you don’t see this kind of characteristic in a thematic fund. So it’s a combination of a bottom-up research by the team specialists.

“The last step, which is a little bit of a top-down judgment by the lead, is the adjusting of the portfolio adequately to that market at that time. So it’s also the risk mitigation tool that we incorporate into our final portfolio construction,” she says.

As GMT grew in Japan, the team decided to take it international.

GMT was marketed in Japan up until the beginning of this year.

And the US was one of the first countries it travelled to.

Rika says the pull was mainly due to its being a thematic fund, where in the past, it was single thematic funds.

“There were a lot of investors who didn’t really have a good experience with thematic investment. They couldn’t think of the right timing to sell and buy a particular theme.

“But allowing us to have that on our judgment, you can have a better performance,” she says.

Today GMT is also marketed in Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, United Kingdom and all its European offices.

Rika says she’s excited that GMT will be offered in Malaysia soon as she sees a strong market here.

“We’re happy to say that Nomura Asset Malaysia will be launching the Nomura Global Multi Theme fund in the first quarter of 2026,” she says.

Nomura Malaysia will aim to raise RM100mil by the end of 2026.

Meanwhile, she says retail investors in Malaysia should strongly consider investing like institutions particularly as market cycles become shorter and more unpredictable.

“One way to look at it is to avoid market timing – we should be aware that markets move faster than we can react so remaining invested is typically more effective than attempting to predict short-term movements.

“On downturns, we know some of the strongest rebounds occur immediately after market corrections,” she advises.

Historically, Rika says market timing often leads to poor outcomes for individuals.

“Global studies indicate that missing just 10 of the strongest performing days in a decade can cut overall returns by up to 50%, underscoring how costly timing mistakes can be.

“In Malaysia, this pattern played out during the pandemic years and subsequent rate-hike cycles, when retail investors frequently increased buying activity during bullish periods and shifted to cash during downturns – effectively buying high and selling low.”

So as investors look forward to the launching of GMT next year, one can hope they are not chasing the next big thing, but choosing a smarter one.