HEXAM Capital Partners celebrates third anniversary with top-decile performance

Emerging markets boutique HEXAM Capital Partners celebrated its third anniversary on 9 November, with its flagship Global Emerging Markets Fund having delivered top-decile performance over the period.
HEXAM, a joint venture between Ignis Asset Management and HEXAM Capital partners Bryan Collings, Marina Akopian, Stuart Richards and Grant Shotter, has generated strong performance across both its emerging market strategies since launch on 6 November 2006. The Ignis International HEXAM Global Emerging Markets Fund, managed by Bryan Collings, HEXAM’s managing partner, is sixth percentile in its peer group in the three years to 6 November 2009, having returned 53.78% against a median fund return of 31.14%.¹
The more regionally focused Ignis International HEXAM Emerging Europe Fund, managed by Stuart Richards and Marina Akopian, has delivered a top-quartile return of 8.96% in the three years to 6 November 2009, compared to a median peer group return of -3.42%, ranking the fund 12^th percentile since launch.²

HEXAM Global Emerging Markets Fund
The Dublin-domiciled Global Emerging Markets Fund is managed in a high conviction style, with Collings and co-manager Shotter taking a pragmatic approach to stock selection, blending top-down and bottom-up analysis into HEXAM’s well established investment process.
The fund aims to achieve long-term capital growth through a concentrated portfolio of approximately 30 to 50 stocks and is not constrained by index weightings. The fund will take active sector and country positions from a broad range of stocks accessing the considerable long-term potential of emerging markets.
To make the fund – voted ‘Best Equity Newcomer’ across all equity sectors at the Portfolio Adviser Awards, 2008 – more widely available on fund platforms, a UK-domiciled version was launched to UK retail investors on 11 February 2009.
In recognition of their strong and consistent performance, both funds have been rated ‘A’ by Old Broad Street Research (OBSR), with the onshore version now rated ‘AA’ by Standard & Poor’s. The UK-domiciled fund has also been recognised by Hargreaves Lansdown which has added it to its prestigious ‘Wealth 150’ list of recommended funds.
HEXAM Emerging Europe Fund
The Dublin-listed fund, which focuses on Russia, Central Europe and Turkey, is run in a similarly high conviction style to the HEXAM GEMs funds. The fund’s success in its sector since launch has been recognised by Standard & Poor’s, which has awarded it an ‘A’ rating.
Bryan Collings says: “The past couple of years have been a rollercoaster ride for markets so it has been extremely pleasing to have delivered such strong performance for investors. Our team has worked together for a long time now and we believe that experience, allied to our robust approach and process, has proved its worth in historically difficult conditions. The long term track records on both strategies are compelling. Emerging markets will be the key driver for growth for at least another generation and we believe we are perfectly positioned, as a high alpha boutique with no investment constraints, to deliver the long-term performance investors increasingly need to enable them to fund the lifestyles they aspire to in retirement.”
Jonathan Polin, Ignis sales and marketing director, says: “HEXAM was conceived as a high alpha joint venture and it has certainly lived up to its promise, delivering exceptional performance in what has been an unbelievably tough time for emerging countries such as Russia. Bryan and his team have shown that a high conviction style, married to excellent – and, at times, brave – decision making, can be a powerful combination. Now that HEXAM has passed its three-year anniversary and is a great success, we expect inflows to accelerate even further, with many investors, both retail and institutional, seeking to increase their allocation to this exciting sector.”