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Tensions between China and the US have escalated once more, as Beijing extends its military drills around Taiwan, adding more uncertainty to what has already been a rocky road for the EM markets this year. In the latest bonus EM Insider episode, EM veteran John Malloy from Redwheel talks through his position as a US based investor who is currently overweight in China, as well as his own predictions for when the fortunes of the embattled market might see better inflows. As well as where he has placed his bets, and which decisions he wished he had made faster.

Even those with a physical copy of the Swiss firm’s conflict of interest policy couldn’t believe what had happened. ‘If you lose the confidence of your clients, you lose everything’. The impact of the Tim Haywood scandal on GAM as a company was apparent, but what about investment professionals either invested with or closely monitoring the Swiss company? In the second part of our special podcast, ‘Suspension of disbelief’, fund buyers reveal what they remember about the crisis as it unfolded, how it affected their interactions with the firm and what longer term lessons they have taken from the event. We hear from Paul Gambles, co-founder of Thailand-based investment company MBMG Group, as well as portfolio manager and analyst Pierre Molinero of OFI Asset Management. For the first episode, which covered the lead-up and immediate aftermath of the crisis, click here.

Sri Lanka has declared a state of emergency amid protests following the country's recent economic crisis, which saw the president flee the country. Many are now asking whether Sri Lanka is the 'canary in the EM coal mine'. In the latest EM Insider episode, emerging market debt expert, Raphael Kassin, talks us through the lessons that investors can take from this crisis, the clues of the pending crisis which he spotted last year. As well as what he believes the long term EM winners will be this year, should rate hikes stabilise.

The suspension of Tim Haywood will go down as a landmark moment in the history of Swiss asset management firm GAM. But, what was the situation prior to the event and how have things changed in the four years since the head of its absolute return bond unit was dismissed. In this two-part series, Citywire’s Chris Sloley and Niamh Doyle recount the lead-up to the shock announcement in July 2018, what happened to the company in the immediate aftermath and also hear from international fund buyers about their experience and understanding of how things unfolded. In this first episode, we rewind the clock to uncover how GAM was functioning in the years leading up to the fateful market update, as well as casting an eye on how the Swiss group dove headlong into crisis management as its share price dropped.

PODCAST: Citywire Selector spoke at length with the GMO founder and value stalwart about his current market thinking. ‘Value tends to prosper’. As far as mantras to live by, Jeremy Grantham is very committed to the idea that buying discounted stocks and making money as they prove the doubters wrong is a way to earn a living. In this extended interview, the GMO founder outlines why he believes the latest rotation in market styles is more meaningful than some that have gone before, while also explaining why the hot pocket of recent growth - technology - might now be sitting right in his wheelhouse. Also in this discussion, we expand on previous points about alternative investing and fears over ‘super bubbles’ being driven by herd mentality, as well as his thoughts about income inequality and being one of the early proponents of climate-aware investing.

Alliance Bernstein’s Vinay Thapar talks about the incredible innovation of the medtech sector versus a slower advancement within the traditional pharmaceutical industry. In the fifth episode of its MedTech podcast, Citywire Selectors meets Vinay Thapar, fund manager at Alliance Bernstein. Thapar, who has been investing in the healthcare space for over two decades and oversees the AB International Health Care fund, talks about the long-term advantages of a thematic strategy and the two main factors that define a successful investable business. When selecting stocks, the fund manager looks at the company’s return on invested capital to determine its efficiency, while also considering the firm’s reinvestment rate. Thapar’s bottom-up investing strategy guarantees a risk-aware portfolio which benefits from the best available opportunities, which are not necessarily linked to a specific country or sub-sector. But what are the main trends and opportunities that lay ahead within the healthcare space? Thapar highlights the current progress in diagnostics triggered by the advances in genome sequencing technology and new tests that will allow to detect cancer faster and more accurately than now. Also on the list are both minimally invasive technology with the rise of surgical robotics, and the implementation of catheter-based technologies. This episode was recorded on February 25 (2022).

While stressing how digitalisation has been embedded within both the medtech and the general health care space over the last few years, Blum highlights his two strategies’ overarching themes, as well as the key differences between the Bellevue Medtech & Services fund and the Bellavue Digital Health fund he oversees. American medical devices and health care producer Abbott Laboratories is one of the large caps the first fund invests in, to concurrently secure stability and growth. The Bellavue Digital Health fund, on the other hand, is mainly tilted towards exponential growth digital health companies like Shockwave Medical, which produces cardiovascular medical devices. In this episode Blum also talks about forthcoming products which are expected to drive market growth and more specifically, he is eyeing names within robotic assisted surgery, structural heart disease treatment and diabetes care. This episode was recorded on February 11 (2022).

There were two reasons Amundi’s Vincent Mortier said parts of the private markets resembled Ponzi schemes. The first is the idea of leverage is often miscommunicated and the second is that value is hard to properly ascertain. That is the view of Cyril Demaria, independent consultant and private markets expert. In this special podcast, Demaria, who has more than 20 years industry experience and was formerly CIO of private markets at UBS Wealth Management, discusses the reality of the private markets landscape today. Also in this discussion, Demaria discusses the challenge of ensuring proper outperformance in a market famed for its limited transparency and also offers his tips for being able to select a private equity fund to fit your portfolio.

During the third episode of its MedTech podcast, Citywire Selectors meets co-head of BMO GAM’s global equities team Jamie Jenkins. He talks about the challenges the MedTech sector has been facing over the last couple of years, and how those hurdles have added to long-term issues like diabetes and an ageing population. Jenkins shares details of his three-step approach which consists in avoiding companies with damaging or unsustainable business practices, while investing in names that make a positive contribution to the society, and/or the environment. Within this strategy, Jenkins and his team want to facilitate and promote best practice management of environmental, social and governance issues, through long-term ownership of companies. The co-head is also lead portfolio manager of both the BMO Responsible Global Equity fund and the BMO SDG Engagement Global Equity fund, and these strategies’ healthcare holdings contribute towards ‘health and wellbeing’, which is one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Both medical equipment provider Thermo Fisher Scientific and genetic variation equipment developer Illumina, are on the list. During this episode Jenkins also explains the overwhelming exposure to US healthcare holdings within his funds, as well as the reason certain Asian countries have become the epicentre of telemedicine development. This episode was recorded on February 11 (2022).

In the second episode of its MedTech podcast, Citywire Selectors meets Paul Loudon, investment manager at Walter Scott & Partners. Loudon, who oversees the BNY Mellon Long Term Global Equity fund, talks about his long-term, high conviction strategy and the best way to access medical technology products and companies with a long runway for growth. At the core of his approach is the aim to invest in MedTech business solutions that benefit all three key stakeholders: the patient, the health system, and the investor. Artificial heart valves & hemodynamic monitoring company Edwards Lifesciences, together with robotic surgery company Intuitive Surgical, sit at the top of the list of healthcare holdings within the fund. While the equipment produced by both companies is equally expensive and sophisticated, it provides safer and effective procedures, which make the investment worthwhile in the medium-long term. This episode was recorded on February 4 (2022).

Kicking off the series is Zehrid Osmani, head of global long-term unconstrained at Martin Currie. With a fifth of his portfolio tilted towards healthcare, Osmani achieves structural growth by focusing on areas of attraction, without letting index exposure dictate his choices. Demographic changes, resource scarcity and an exponential growth of technology across all economy sectors, are the megatrends at the hearth of his strategy. But what new areas are consolidating within the healthcare space? Genomics, which is leading the way to tailor made therapies based on everybody's genetic profile, is certainly on the list. And guess what, the cost of sequencing a genome has decreased from $54m in 2003, to just $600 at present! This episode was recorded on February 4 (2022).

If you’re making sustainability hires for marketing purposes, it will quickly become clear it’s not going to work or it won’t have a true impact on the business. When selecting funds, Anne Ackerman, former head of impact fund selection at Credit Suisse, always paid attention to interactions between portfolio managers and ESG analysts to make sure that their approach to sustainability was robust enough. ‘It is not about the number of people, CVs of those people, but more about the commitment of the business and people running the business; how they actually support sustainability experts.’ In her view it is not just about integrating sustainability into the investment process but also about the role it plays for companies themselves, be it the wellbeing of employees or how a given firm sets environmental or climate targets. 'If this is not supported at the high level – at some point there probably will be struggles, but I think it is an important aspect to look at.’ Also in this podcast former fund buyer explains why she likes ESG approach of boutiques and what is the difference between impact and ESG fund selection.

Jeremie Banet once was a fund manager at Pimco. However, after a few years in finance, he decided that he needed to experience something more tangible. After setting up a French food truck company, which didn’t succeed, he tried to mix both worlds, returning to the US firm as lead portfolio manager of global inflation-linked bond funds. However, Banet again decided to leave asset management for good to become an academic on digital currencies and is currently a PhD student at the University of California Irvine. For the last episode of this second series of Breaking and Entering, we uncover a ‘lost tape’ from our first season, which was helmed by former Citywire Selector reporter Victoire Barbin Perron.

Brokers in Wall Street still tell stories about the time 'Queen of the Court' Regina Borromeo remained undefeated for years during her years in Manhattan. After all, to win various tennis and squash championships at university and share courts with some of the most renowned players in the world is something very few people get to do. Nevertheless, while she managed to handle both her sports and educational careers during her teenage years, Borromeo decided that going professional wasn't for her. However, she kept her passion high up in her priorities list. She competed with the Philippines team in the Asian Games in 2018 against rivals half her age, before becoming director of global macro fixed income at Robeco.

Sam Gratton spent a decade in the City working as a credit salesman selling bonds, credit derivatives and structured credit for companies such as Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Santander. However, he found himself one day in the need to escape the finance ‘vortex’ as he needed to do something more creative. He then studied film in London, but this eventually led him to establish his own company in Madrid, Spain. He decided to become an English teacher, coach and mentor for high profile business professionals.

In the third episode of the Breaking & Entering new series, we deep dive into the world of classical music, and how an academic musician can easily move towards asset management. Chris Ford now manages the Sanlam AI Artificial Intelligence fund, but there was a time when his job was about deciphering eco-musicology and why French music is still very much a world of its own. A holder of bachelors and masters in music and now head of growth equities at Sanlam Investments, Ford talks about the ‘need for silence’ both in asset management decision-making and a string quarter performance.

In the second episode of the Breaking & Entering new series, we discover the story of Tom Hancock, who went from being a research scientist at IBM surrounded by punched cards and noisy computers, to work in asset management at GMO. Hancock studied computer science at Harvard University and wasn’t particularly interested in finance, until he decided to give it a go after a few experiences in the science field. Get ready to jump on the Citywire Selector Delorean and travel back to the days of (un)flat monitors and old-school coding, when receiving an email seemed like magic.

Even though many Article 8 funds under the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation don’t have buzzwords like ‘ESG’ in the names, their inclusion sends a stronger signal to investors. Speaking to Citywire Selector Hortense Bioy, head of ESG research at Morningstar, said if a fund’s name doesn’t include ‘ESG’ or sustainability terms, these issues are unlikely to play a central role in the strategy. ‘I’m not saying that these funds do not consider ESG factors, many are now doing it. But these factors are, more often than not, non-binding.’ Also in this podcast Bioy discusses Morningstar’s decision to reduce the number of funds it deems sustainable, and what the invasion of Ukraine means for sustainable investments.

Breaking & Entering is back, with ex figure skating athlete Alban Préaubert as the first guest in the second series of the podcast. In this episode, the Sycomore AM fund manager tells Daniel Ruiz about his switch from competing for France in World Championships and GPs all around the globe, to asset management. The Frenchman, who is now focused on overseeing several small and mid caps strategies, believes that professional competition and finance share many values and lessons, which he still applies on a daily basis.

In this episode of EM Insider, Raphael Kassin shares his thoughts on how the Russian invasion of Ukraine has hit specific markets and what investment decisions he has noticed both in the lead up and following the onset of the conflict. Also in this episode, Kassin tells Citywire Selector reporter, Krystle Higgins his own investment strategy in the hours and days after the war began. Kassin also shares predictions on Russia’s future place within global markets in the months and years ahead, as well as what role China may play.