Baring Asset Management has strengthened its Europe, Middle East and Africa equity team with the addition of senior investment manager Mike Levy.

Levy was latterly an investment manager at AllianceBernstein. In his new London-based role at Barings, he reports to Ghadir Abu Leil-Cooper, who heads up the EMEA equity team.

At AllianceBernstein, Levy helped manage the firm's international and emerging equity portfolios, concentrating on EMEA markets, for which he led the regional portfolio management function. Before that, he had additional responsibilities managing frontier equity portfolios, with a particular focus on Africa.

“The [EMEA] region is supported by favourable demographics (a young and growing population and an increasing middle class) forming a strong and underleveraged consumer base and relatively low levels of government debt compared to developed countries,” Leil-Cooper said. “Much of the region is rich in commodities which help pay for the improving infrastructure needed to support economic development.”

The firm had some $2.9 billion under management at 31 May across the Baring Eastern Europe, Baring Russia and Baring MENA funds, as well as the Baring Emerging Europe fund and segregated institutional portfolios.