Emerging High Conviction Equity

Our disciplined investment process enables us to harness the inefficiencies resulting from market biases in emerging markets. We employ a) active country allocation to capture differences in risk and opportunities between countries; b) fundamental stock selection analysis that maintains a long-term investment view to uncover structural drivers; c) quantitative models as a tool to exploit the behavioral biases of market participants; d) a value bias as we identify undervalued opportunities where the structural earnings outlook is not yet appreciated by the market.

The investment process starts with active top-down country allocation, where we identify the positive and negative macro drivers across different emerging markets. Around 80% of the portfolio is invested in the top five most attractive countries. Stock selection in a specific country is based on these macro drivers, the proprietary quantitative stock selection model and an in-depth fundamental company analysis to identify those stocks with the ability to outperform in the long run. The focus is on companies with a sound business model, solid growth prospects and a reasonable valuation.

The team, which is headed by Wim-Hein Pals, who co-founded Robeco’s Emerging Markets capability in 1994, has eight portfolio managers and five research analysts with specific country and sector coverage. The average investment experience of its members is more than 15 years and they have diverse cultural backgrounds, bringing local knowledge and different point of views to the investment process. The team is supported by substantial internal resources, including Robeco’s Hong Kong-based Asia Pacific team.

Our approach: We consider active country allocation to be instrumental when investing in emerging markets and an essential part of the fundamental bottom-up stock selection process.