UK Emerging Markets Specialist Adds To Fund Range

Rachel Walsh

13 February 2009

London-based Hexam Capital, which specialises in emerging markets fund management, has launched the UK-domiciled Ignis Hexam Global Emerging Markets Fund. The new onshore fund will mirror the boutique’s £71 million (about $100 million) Dublin-domiciled Ignis International Hexam Global Emerging Markets Fund.

Hexam decided to create an onshore equivalent to the existent fund as onshore authorisation will make the fund more widely available on fund platforms, making it more accessible for UK investors.

Managed by Bryan Collings, the fund aims to achieve long-term capital growth through a concentrated portfolio of approximately 30 to 50 stocks. The fund will take active sector and country positions from a broad range of stocks and is not contrained by index weightings.

Mirroring its offshore counterpart, the onshore fund will initially adopt high conviction overweight positions towards Brazil, China and Russia. The fund has also taken advantage of depressed commodity stocks and has built a material active position in very select themes.

Currently, the Hexam fund only has exposure to seven of the 23 mainstream emerging markets, illustrating the team’s concentration on ‘best ideas’ in the portfolio construction process.

“Emerging markets have the kind of solid fundamentals and investment opportunities that the developed world can only dream about. We firmly believe that many investors are taking an unintended risk by not having sufficient exposure in their portfolios, especially given our concerns about the UK economy and the dismal long-term outlook for domestic savings yields,” said Mr Collings.

“Emerging markets will deliver significant and sustainable growth over the coming decades and at current levels, we believe this is an exceptional medium-term buying opportunity and the perfect time to make the fund more accessible to UK investors,” he added.

Hexam's investment management team is comprised of Bryan Collings, Stuart Richards, Marina Akopian and Grant Shotter. Between them, the team manages four funds: the Ignis Hexam Global Emerging Markets Fund, the Ignis Hexam Emerging Europe Fund, the Ignis Hexam Global Resources Fund and the Ignis Hexam EMEA Fund.

Hexam launched in July 2006 as a joint venture with Ignis Asset Management. Ignis has approximately £70 billion of assets under management and provides Hexam with capital security, infrastructure and service support.