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could potentially be much faster than ASM
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And by definition that makes no sence what so ever, ASM is about a half inch away from the Hex codes the computer sees, this makes it impossible (not unlikely, impossible) for any high level language to be faster than (fairly well writen) ASM.
While this is true, portabiliy isn't just about crossing platforms but also about future portability. A hard coded asm executable will always remain the same. The theory is, if you were to upgrade your processor the runtime for the higher level language could re-compile the intermediate code to take advantage of the newer processors features. This could potentially make the program run faster than your original hard coded exe that didn't take advantage of the newer features/instructions.

However, you could always re-do your asm program to make it faster again, if you had the time and willingness to re-distribute.