聯博全球高收益債券基金在我國成功原因之探討

Abstract

AllianceBernstein Global High Yield Portfolio (“AB GHY”) is the most popular mutual fund distributed in Taiwan. Its assets under management (“AUM”) exceeded NTD 812.2 billion by May 31, 2013 with 50.44% of total assets from Taiwanese investors. This thesis explores various factors contributing the success of AB GHY in Taiwan, especially the importance of first mover’s advantage. The global trend of investment in mutual funds over the past 2 decades can be strongly reflected in the Taiwan industry, where by 2014 the AUM of mutual funds in Taiwan reached NTD$ 5,110 billion. Offshore funds are found to have better competitive advantages over onshore funds due to regulatory complication, differing registrations process, distribution models and Taiwan investors’ behaviors. In particular, high yield bond funds enjoy the highest growth rates due to its specificity to investor needs. When compared with other high yield bond funds, AB GHY has significantly better brand awareness owing to stable dividend mechanism and longer term superior fund performance. Looking deeper at the theory of first mover’s advantage and its implications on the success of AB GHY, it is found that customers’ preference formation and persistence enjoyed by being the first entrant lead to the success of AB GHY. Satisfactory experience in investing AB GHY forges the brand loyalty. As the first high yield bond fund introducing stable dividend mechanism to Taiwan, AB GHY secures the chance to define the product concept, influencing investment decision-making processes of investors. The first mover advantages have helped sustain the success of AB GHY in the past decade. Imitation and entry barriers were found to have limited impact, therefore competition on fund performance and dividend rate of similar products will most likely determine the market leader of high yield bond funds in the future.