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The £323m Martin Currie Asia Pacific fund has suffered over the last half year due to the very recent outperformance of banks and underperformance of resources, according to its co-manager Richard Evans.

Mr Evans said he has made an effort to improve returns by retaining his zero exposure to Australian banks and overweighting the coal industry, which has experienced strong demand from energy and steel producers.

But James Fairweather, chief investment officer, and co-manager David Sheasby have already improved returns against the peer group on their £30m Global Alpha fund since Mr Fairweather officially took over as manager in April.

The managers will also be looking to boost returns when they bring a new investment analyst, Alan Porter, into the team next month. Mr Porter will focus on meeting internal managers and researchers, as well as external companies.

Mr Porter has 17 years' investment experience and comes from BlueSilver Alternative. He has particular experience in pan-European equities, but will be covering stocks on a global basis.

Mr Fairweather said Mr Porter would be looking for strong ideas from Martin Currie's regional and sector analysis as part of his role. He took the example of Fording Canadian Coal, a former play in the Global Alpha fund, which was also a strong position in Martin Currie's North American portfolios.

"If Alan was able to produce a Fording Canadian Coal twice a year, he'd pay his way," he said.

Over one year to 4 August, the fund lost 9.8 per cent against a Global Growth average of 9 per cent and came 98th out of 179 in the peer group. But from 1 April to 31 July, the fund lost 0.1 per cent compared with 3.7 per cent for the sector.

By contrast, the £323m Martin Currie Asia Pacific fund has had a difficult six months, coming 48th out of 76 Asia Pacific ex Japan portfolios over one year with losses of 9 per cent against 7.8 per cent for the sector.

Richard Evans, co-manager of the fund with Jason McCay, said the recovery of banks and the dip in resource equities in Australia had been detrimental to the portfolio as it contains no Australian banks.

Australian mining group BHP Billiton is 5.5 per cent of the fund, a 100-basis-point overweight compared with the index.

But Mr Evans said the way to turn performance around was by sticking with his bets on the banks.

"Australian financials are very similar to UK financials. National Australia Bank has just taken a large write-off on its CDO exposure. They're due more derating."

But Mr Evans is by no means wholly negative on financials. Although banks make up 24.7 per cent of his portfolio against 32.6 per cent of his benchmark, he has found some good banking plays elsewhere in the region, including United Overseas Bank, Hang Seng Bank and China Merchants Bank.