Emerging Markets Whitepaper - Emerging Markets have come of age

Looking forward, it is a serious doubt that there may be too many humans for the planet to sustain this century. Looking backwards, the last thirty years have seen billions of people lifted out of poverty. Those two points may be connected.

The rise in living standards has much to do with the success of populous countries such as India, China, Indonesia, and Vietnam industrialising. Farmers have become factory workers, replicating a pattern in Western Europe and the U.S. many decades ago. To keep costs down, companies in these rich regions have tended to transfer both light and heavy industry to Emerging Markets, with the irony that their efforts are financed in part by the pension funds of the rich-world workers who lost their jobs as part of the transfer.

The moot question for pension funds and other institutional investors is how much to allocate to Emerging Markets.

Download the whitepaper to find out what was discussed at the cio investment club's recent roundtable, sponsored by Capital Group.

Our participants were:

Jeremy Cunningham, Investment Director, Capital Group
Søren Sørensen, CFA, Senior Portfolio Manager, Russell Investments
Oriana Mezini, Senior Investment Research Consultant, Hymans Robertson
Sam Mahtani, Director, Alpha ESG Consulting Ltd
Ian Coulman, Chief Investment Officer, Pool Re
Will Ballard, Head of Investments, Border to Coast Pensions Partnership
Corrado Pistarino, Chief Investment Officer, Foresters Friendly Society