JOHCM opens $1.2B emerging markets strategy to wider investors
What's the deal? J O Hambro Capital ManagementDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has launched the JOHCM Emerging Markets Fund, an Irish-domiciled UCITS that opens a 16-year investment strategy to a broader pool of investors. The strategy, previously run for institutional clients, manages $1.2bn in emerging-market equities.
Who's running it? Emery Brewer leads a three-person team that has overseen the strategy since 2010. Brewer, with more than 30 years in the industry, is joined by fund managers Ladislav Sabo and Dalibor Kováč.
What's the endgame? The fund takes a high-conviction, all-cap approach, hunting for opportunities beyond the largest companies and most heavily weighted markets in the MSCI Emerging Markets index. It will invest at least 80% of net assets in emerging-market equities and aims to outperform the index over a five-to-seven-year period.
The team blends companies with durable long-term growth prospects and businesses whose recovering earnings have yet to be reflected in their share prices. It uses three signals — news flow, earnings momentum, and share-price momentum — to spot inflection points, alongside proprietary screening for accounting and governance risks.
Why now? "After more than a decade overshadowed by US equities, emerging markets are drawing investors back," Brewer said. He argued the index is "a blunt way to capture them," with ownership narrowed to a handful of large companies and markets.
What could go wrong? Demand remains choppy. Foreign investors pulled $26.3bn from emerging-market stocks and bonds in September, though ReutersDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → reported equity-fund inflows returning later in October. The launch is not evidence of fundraising success; the test is whether it draws assets amid volatile flows.
JOHCM, established in 1993 and owned by Australian-listed Perpetual, managed roughly £16.5bn across global and regional equity strategies as of September 30. The new fund is classified as Article 8 under the EU's Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation.
The signal: The launch reflects a wider push to offer active, index-agnostic routes into emerging markets as investors rotate back into the asset class after years of US equity dominance.
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