Tony Yousefian (pictured right), OPM Fund Management
"We have quite a strong allocation to emerging markets in our portfolio. One that we certainly favour is Lazard Developing Markets. It’s designed for the growth-orientated investor. So far the track record has been very good.""The other one we hold is Fidelity Emerging Markets which is managed by Nick Price. He’s been running the fund slightly longer than the Lazard one has been open so there is a longer track record. I really like Nick’s style."
"Both funds are overweight in the right regions. Russia is our favourite area, we also like South Africa. We’re beginning to warm up to China as well after some good data. We think they’ve got the inflation genie under control."
Rob Burdett (pictured below left), Thames River Capital
"Ones that we use are Aberdeen Emerging Markets, IM Hexam Global Emerging Markets and JOHCM Emerging Markets.""Aberdeen, as everyone knows, has a good solid backbone of company research. Performance has been very good over the last few years."
"With a very strong team of ex-Barings guys, the Hexam fund complements the Aberdeen fund nicely. They tend to have strong views regionally. Though this has occasionally gone against them we like the high-conviction approach."
"JO Hambro has only just launched its emerging markets fund but it has got off to a very good start. We like investing with boutiques because the managers have the freedom to follow their own ideas."
David Coombs (pictured right), head of multi-asset investments at Rathbones
"As a general point, global emerging markets look expensive on several metrics. We made this call towards the end of last year, before it became the consensus. But a quick scan of the MENA regions suggests that a political premium is still required." "Eastern Europe, however, is one area that we are looking at with some interest. We are currently conducting due diligence into the Jupiter Emerging European Opportunities fund and the Renaissance European fund."
"Jupiter’s Elena Shaftan is an experienced manager with a transparent and robust investment process. And we like the mandate of the Renaissance fund, which can hold 0 per cent in a country, and currently invests 35 per cent off benchmark."
Bish Limbu (pictured below left), fund manager on the Octopus multi-manager team
"Our core choice is quite uninspiring - we’ve gone for Aberdeen Emerging Markets. The performance is solid, it’s good value and slightly low beta. We’ve held that for about six months.""The interesting part of our allocation comes around the edges. We trade the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF and also the single-country ETFs from Brazil, China and India."
"The ETFs are attractive for trading because they are volatile and there is money to be made trading that volatility."
Juliet Schooling-Latter (pictured right), head of research at Chelsea Financial
"I would have to go for Aberdeen Emerging Markets. They have a strong team based out in the regions.""The fund has grown considerably in size and has still managed to perform very strongly. I like it a lot because they focus on quality companies with strong balance sheets and low debt."
"With an uncertain economic picture I think it is safer to be at the quality end. If markets rally strongly the fund might struggle to keep up but the strategy will help protect against any downside."