KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 22): Current global and domestic economic headwinds notwithstanding, Aberdeen Asset Management Plc maintains an optimistic view of Malaysia's equities market.

"Today's weak markets actually suit us, as we like to accumulate high quality assets as cheaply as possible. Poor sentiment is currently throwing up opportunities we haven't seen for a while. Malaysia is home to plenty of well-run companies and the economy is in good hands," said Aberdeen Islamic Asset Management Sdn Bhd (AIAMSB) chief executive officer, Gerald Ambrose.

He added that the current weakness is not limited to Malaysia, as emerging markets as a whole, have been affected by the dampened commodity prices and worries on China's growth.

"Some funds making an exit provide an opportunity for the longer-term investors to accumulate. We're seeing quite big outflows from emerging markets at the moment," said Ambrose.

Meanwhile, Aberdeen Asset Management's chief executive officer, Martin Gilbert, noted emerging markets are currently "out of fashion", and that the Malaysian market will not fully recover — not until investors return to emerging markets.

"This could happen next week or it could take a year. We have not seen any signs yet of it happening, although we have seen some money returning to emerging markets over the past few weeks," he said.

The duo was speaking at a press conference held today, in conjunction with Aberdeen's 10th anniversary in Malaysia. They were joined by Aberdeen Asset Management Asia Ltd's managing director Hugh Young.

Aberdeen Asset Management Sdn Bhd, the local arm of the UK-based global asset manager, is now looking to run global sukuk mandates from Kuala Lumpur, through AIAMSB.

Ambrose said the global interest in sukuk mandates has been growing, and that Malaysia and Aberdeen have the profile and resources to win the mandates.

"We've been in Malaysia for 10 years and we really see Malaysia as a great location for investing. We run our global portfolios and shariah-compliant portfolios here. Malaysia is really a big centre for that.

"The long term plan is to further expand the business here, we'd like to get into global sukuk management in the country, starting from a small level. I think Kuala Lumpur is a great centre for us, within our global framework," said Ambrose.

Currently, AAMSB has assets under management (AUM) of over RM22.36 billion, whereby a major portion of its investments are in Malaysian, Asian and global equities.