Man GLG Launches Unconstrained Emerging Equity Strategy for Simon Pickard and Edward Cole

Man GLG, the discretionary investment management business of Man Group plc, is pleased to announce that it has launched an unconstrained emerging equity strategy.
Available from 1 September, the strategy – run by co-portfolio managers Simon Pickard and Edward Cole, who joined Man GLG from Carmignac Gestion in May 2015 – focuses on seeking out attractive opportunities for investors over the longer-term, with a view to generating returns above the MSCI Emerging Markets Free Index.
The long-only strategy seeks to blend value, quality, momentum and macro styles to create an actively managed and diversified portfolio of emerging market securities which the managers believe are mispriced on a long-term cashflow-derived valuation basis.
The strategy will typically hold around 50 stocks from a universe of around 300 stocks which conform to the managers’ screening process, with a pipeline of potential candidates aimed at ensuring only the most attractive opportunities are included in the portfolio.
Pickard and Cole have extensive experience of investing in emerging market securities. Pickard was formerly head of emerging market equities at Carmignac Gestion, running its large and mid-cap global emerging markets strategies for the last six years. In total, he has worked in finance across EMEA and the Emerging Markets for over 18 years, also having held positions at Jupiter Asset Management and Argos Investment Managers.
Cole was formerly a portfolio manager at Carmignac Gestion, co-managing its emerging market multi-strategy portfolio. He has 14 years of experience in financial markets and has previously worked as a co-manager for emerging markets strategies at Ashmore Group and Finisterre Capital. Prior to this he spent seven years as a sell-side equity strategist at both JP Morgan Securities and Unicredit.
Teun Johnston, Co-CEO of Man GLG, said: “Launching an unconstrained emerging equity strategy forms a key pillar in the development of Man GLG’s Long Only business. Simon and Edward are highly experienced investors, with significant trading expertise in emerging markets and we believe that this, combined with Man GLG’s robust infrastructure, will create a compelling proposition.”
Simon Pickard, Co-Portfolio Manager, said: “Businesses situated in emerging markets have the opportunity to exploit considerable structural under-penetration for their goods and services. This opportunity is undiminished by the current economic climate, and we see attractive entry points in terms of valuation. Against this backdrop we believe our stock-specific, active approach has the potential to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns for investors.”
Edward Cole, Co-Portfolio Manager, added: “Global deflationary forces are creating considerable volatility in emerging markets, but the situation will not remain like this indefinitely. Indeed such a backdrop presents what we view as a significant opportunity for us to build up a portfolio of stocks whose potential return on capital is high and which we believe are valued at much more attractive free cashflow yields than the market”