Aviva Investors has more than doubled the number of investment professionals focused on emerging markets, with a new fund about to be launched.
The company hired Alastair Way from Aberdeen Standard Investments in July 2018 as part of the push, and since then the number of staff on the emerging markets desk, split between offices in Edinburgh and London, has risen from four to nine.
Mr Way will launch and manage an emerging markets fund in the near future - the second quarter of 2019 is the estimated timeframe for the product to come to market.
He said the fund will be an "emerging market unconstrained equity" fund. Unconstrained means a fund can invest across the market capitalisation spectrum, and, in this case, does not need to stick close to the weightings of the MSCI Global Emerging markets index.
He said: "Looking at emerging markets it is a mistake to even pretend that an investor can mitigate the risks from politics or currencies.
"We try to focus on stocks, and we don’t hedge the currency, we want to give pure emerging market exposure.
"Emerging markets will always have that volatility, but those markets are also the place to get exposure to fast growing technology companies like Tencent or Alibaba."
He said the new fund will also have a focus on ethical, social and governance, particularly governance, as the latter is often an issue with the management of companies in emerging markets.
david.thorpe@ft.com
