By MARCEL PORCHERON 26/03/2009
The global emerging markets equity team at Aberdeen is headed by Devan Kaloo. The team has a high level of interaction with their Aberdeen Asian colleagues based in Singapore. This emerging market smaller companies fund offers access to Aberdeen’s investment process which has been used successfully in Asia and the emerging markets for a number of years. This process relies on detailed proprietary company research and places an emphasis on investing in quality companies.
As in the Asian and other emerging market portfolios run by Aberdeen, the investment team adopts a conservative approach to valuation and company earnings prospects and their investment process is also biased away from investing in cyclical companies, although they will hold best-in- class cyclical companies from time to time. Generally, the team will find it harder to outperform when cyclical or low quality companies are performing strongly although their focus on quality should lead to better relative performance in a more difficult environment. Other key members of the team include Hugh Young and Peter Hames.
Investors should note that there will be an overlap in holdings with Aberdeen’s Global Asian Smaller Companies fund so for the purposes of diversification it may be inadvisable to hold both. Typically about 50% of the Emerging Market Small Cap fund is invested in Asia, although this may change over time depending on the availability and quality of smaller companies listed elsewhere in the emerging markets.
The fund has been awarded 3 stars.