The managers of the Invesco Emerging Markets ex China fund aim to build a highly active portfolio of approximately 35-45 companies across emerging markets (excluding China) which is diversified across markets and countries. The valuation-driven process is contrarian in nature, targeting companies in unloved parts of the market. Companies are held over a 3-5 year time horizon with the hope these businesses can deliver double-digit annualised returns.
Our opinion
This fund is an excellent alternative for investors who want emerging markets exposure but want to diversify their portfolios and reduce country concentration risk around China. The fund is backed by the experienced and well-resourced emerging markets team at Invesco, who already have a number of successful EM solutions in the marketplace. The process adopts a value focus, with returns largely driven from stock selection. It is still relatively early days, but performance since launch has been very promising.
Company description
Founded in 1969, Invesco forms part of Invesco Ltd, a global independent investment management company with more than 8,600 employees in more than 25 countries. Invesco offers diversified investment strategies spanning all major equity, fixed income, asset allocation and alternative asset classes. In October 2018, Invesco Perpetual dropped its Perpetual branding and is now simply known as Invesco.
Fund manager
James McDermottroe joined Invesco in August 2013 as an intern working within the Henley-based emerging market and US equities teams, before becoming a permanent member of the emerging market equity team in December 2013. James holds an MSc in Finance & Banking and a BSc (Hons) in Mathematics from the University of Bath and is a CFA charterholder.
Charles Bond joined Invesco in April 2012 and is a fund manager in the Asian & Emerging Market Equities team. In addition to co-managing this fund, he is also lead manager of the Invesco Global Emerging Markets fund. He started his investment career within the fund research team at Chelsea Financial Services in January 2011. He holds a BSc (Honours) in International Relations from the University of Manchester and the Investment Management Certificate from the CFA Society of the UK.
James McDermottroeFund manager
Investment process
As with the rest of Invesco’s emerging markets offerings, the core of this fund’s philosophy and approach to investing is the view that valuation is paramount. The team seeks to invest in companies that are trading at a significant discount to their estimate of fair value and looks for ideas in unloved areas.
Investment decisions are made to try to exploit market inefficiencies caused by investor behavioural biases. These biases include things like market overreaction to short-term issues and trend extrapolation. While the fund doesn’t have a specific style bias, it does have a slight value tilt.
The majority of the team's research is focused on analysing individual stocks, including evaluating a company's competitive advantages, management quality, balance sheet strength, and identifying key factors that drive earnings.
Stripping out Chinese companies, the team has established an investable universe of approximately 600-700 stocks, extensively researched over a significant period. The team aims to further narrow down the investable universe into a dynamic buy-list called the ‘Company Shortlist’, comprising around 60-70 stocks (this figure stands at 100 when including Chinese companies in the other emerging markets portfolios).
Some of these stocks are already held in the portfolio, while others are potential candidates for inclusion. The company shortlist is continuously evaluated and ranked based on changing share prices and fundamentals.
Conducting company meetings is an essential stage in the fund managers’ process, as it helps solidify their comprehension of the business's characteristics, key drivers, competitive standing, and the management's potential to achieve their objectives.
The portfolio construction process comes next, with the managers aiming to optimise exposure to the most appealing stocks, sectors, and themes by creating a concentrated portfolio consisting of around 35-45 stocks – each holding is likely to be held in other portfolios across the emerging market fund range.
The weightings assigned to each stock reflect the team's assessment of its attractiveness and the level of conviction.
ESG
ESG - Limited
The team takes a comprehensive approach by examining a company's ESG credentials alongside traditional financial and qualitative factors to establish a fair value. It particularly emphasises the concept of ESG materiality (the impact of ESG factors on fair value) and ESG momentum (the potential for ESG improvement over time), as both factors can influence a stock's potential returns and the team's level of conviction in an investment.
Risk
Risk management is embedded in the process. Multiple groups also oversee and support the investment team throughout the process, including risk committees, global compliance, and the investment risk team. Investment in emerging markets tends to be more volatile than in developed markets. This fund also does not have exposure to China, meaning performance can be significantly different to the wider emerging market index. There are also currency risks to consider.
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