BNY Mellon Investment Management has launched a fund designed to capitalize on Japan’s improving economy and on its women’s initiative, the firm announced on Tuesday.
The fund, Dreyfus Japan Womenomics Fund, seeks long-term capital growth and is sub-advised by BNY Mellon Asset Management Japan Limited, an affiliate of the fund’s investment adviser, The Dreyfus Corporation, which is BNY Mellon’s U.S. Fund Platform. A-shares of the new fund will trade under the ticker DJWAX.
The fund normally will invest in Japanese-listed companies that should benefit from the Japanese government’s Womenomics initiative, which is designed to enhance economic growth in Japan through improved gender parity in the workforce.
The Womenomics initiative includes efforts to ease barriers to female employment outside the home, promote women to leadership positions and close the gender pay gap. Recent government policies to support the initiative have included a labor reform law, expanding day care facilities, and a law requiring action plans from companies of a certain size to increase female employment, BNY Mellon said.
“Dreyfus Japan Womenomics Fund is BNY Mellon’s first U.S. thematic fund offering investors direct exposure to the improving Japanese economy,” said Alicia Levine, chief strategist, BNY Mellon Investment Management. “With the increase in investor demand for strategies tied to unleashing female potential and improved gender diversity, the Dreyfus Japan Womenomics Fund offers a solution for growth-seeking investors in one of the only nations with a sustained program in place to advance the economic opportunity of women in society.”
The fund is managed by members of the Japan Equity Investment Division at BNY Mellon Asset Management. The fund is not managed to a benchmark index, nor will the fund’s portfolio have the same characteristics as its designated broad-based securities market index, TOPIX Total Return Index, a market capitalization-weighted index consisting of all stocks traded on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.