Fidelity Launches Emerging EMEA Fund

Nick Parmee

17 July 2007

Fidelity International has launched an Emerging Europe, Middle East and Africa fund. It will be run by Nick Price, a nine-year veteran at Fidelity; he will seek to profit from long-term investment trends including the impact of global industrialisation, the rapid urbanisation of the region and continued strong demand for natural resources. The region includes the Czech Republic, Egypt, Hungary, Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Poland, Russia, South Africa and Turkey, countries rich in natural resources. According to Fidelity, it has an investment universe of $1.5 trillion and with low correlation to the US, Europe and UK and low inter-market correlation across the region. Mr Price believes it offers diversification benefits and the potential for significant risk-adjusted returns. The fund, domiciled in Luxembourg, will aim to generate long-term capital growth through investing primarily in securities of companies which have their head office or which have a predominant part of their activity in the region. It will typically hold between 50 and 70 stocks. The benchmark of the fund is the MSCI Emerging EMEA index (capped 5 per cent). However, the manager will not be constrained to this benchmark and will therefore be able to invest in other countries in the region such as Bulgaria, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Oman, Qatar, Romania, Slovenia and the United Arab Emirates, where suitable opportunities arise.