Barings launches frontier markets fund

Baring Asset Management has launched a frontier markets fund which will seek long-term capital growth with an exposure of at least 70% to frontier markets.

The fund will be managed by Michael Levy, investment manager, and supported by Dr Ghabir Abu Leil-Cooper, head of EMEA at Barings. It aims to use a mix of top-down analysis of political and economic factors, and a bottom-up stock selection process. Barings said that it believes frontier markets, such as Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Sri Lanka and the Ukraine, offer the potential for strong long-term growth with low correlation with emerging and developed markets, as well as low intra-country correlation. Barings said that the approximate asset allocation of the fund at launch will be 53.5% Middle East and North Africa, 23.5% Africa, 12.3% Eastern Europe, 7.5% Asia, 1.6% cash and 1.5% Latin America.