Emerging MarketsFeb 16 2017

Witan appoints GQG as emerging markets manager

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Witan appoints GQG as emerging markets manager

The £1.9bn Witan investment trust has appointed GQG Partners to run a £70m segregated emerging markets portfolio for the investment trust, replacing the Trilogy Emerging Markets fund.

The appointment follows an review of potential managers during 2016, with GQG set to manage an initial allocation that is equivalent to approximately 4 per cent of the investment trust’s net assets.

The global equity multi-manager investment trust has now opted for GQG, an employee-owned investment boutique formed in June 2016 by Rajiv Jain. At the end of 2016 managed £615m for clients across three product areas of global, international and emerging market equities. 

The firm runs a concentrated quality growth approach with a typical holding period of five years. Prior to forming GQG, Mr Jain had served as co-chief executive officer, chief investment officer and head of equities at Vontobel Asset Management.

The investment trust sold out of its holding in the €1.5bn (£1.3bn) Trilogy Emerging Markets fund in March before undergoing the selection process. Over three years, the Trilogy fund has underperformed the MSCI Emerging Markets, returning 39 per cent verses 42 per cent, according to FE Analytics.

Witan said after selling out of Trilogy, emerging markets exposure was maintained using index futures linked to the MSCI Emerging Markets index, and through investment in a smaller companies fund managed by Somerset Capital Management.

The appointment of GQG takes the number of external managers used by Witan to 11.

Andrew Bell, chief executive of Witan, stated: “Emerging markets are not a homogeneous asset class as countries and companies within the universe often possess quite different investment characteristics.

"Therefore, a key aspect of our search was to identify a manager to construct a portfolio of high quality companies which was truly benchmark agnostic, selecting the best companies in this varied and exciting area.”

He added that despite GQG being a new partnership, Mr Jain had  "longstanding investment record in both global and emerging market equities".