Pick: Ping An Insurance Group
Richard Gao began his career as a loan officer and foreign-exchange trader at the Bank of China. Today he runs the $5.4 billion Matthews Pacific Tiger Fund (MAPTX), whose annualized five-year return puts it in the top 3% of its category. Gao champions Ping An Insurance Group, a Chinese company with a $50 billion market cap that trades in Hong Kong. It's the second-largest life and property-and-casualty insurer in China, and it's expanding into financial services. Insurance has been booming in China on the strength of the expanding middle class. Analysts expect earnings per share to be up 32% this year. Beyond the growth potential, Gao also likes Ping An's unusual ownership structure for a major financial company in China: HSBC (HBC) owns 16%. "It's not the typical state-owned enterprise," Gao says, noting that Ping An has been taking market share from its big government-owned competitors. Says Gao: "We believe that Ping An is on the way to becoming one of China's strongest financial conglomerates."
--A.F.
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