AXA Rosenberg launches new insto product

AXA Rosenberg Investment Management Asia Pacific has this week launched a new global emerging markets product pitched at Australian institutional investors.

The fund manager announced that it had launched the Global Emerging Markets Equity Trust in response to projected demand for emerging markets exposure among institutional investors.

Commenting on the launch of the product during a visit to Australian institutional investors this month, Americas chief investment officer for AXA Rosenberg, Bill Ricks, said active fund managers were expected to benefit from the recent increased volatility and increased stock valuation and this was expected to create new opportunities for investors.

The company’s Sydney-based head of investments in Australia and New Zealand, Kathryn McDonald, said AXA Rosenberg’s research showed an even stronger relationship between earnings and returns in emerging markets compared to developed markets.

She said the company believed its approach to investing in developed markets was applicable to emerging markets.

“Emerging markets equities with a higher earnings yield tend to outperform those with a lower yield,” she said. “Although gathering and analysing corporate financial data in emerging markets remains challenging, we believe there is enough quality data across a great many companies to make individual security analysis a fruitful endeavour,” McDonald said.

The company said investments into the local emerging markets trust would be managed as part of AXA Rosenberg’s existing Global Emerging Markets Equity Strategy launched in mid-2006.