Diversified exposure to emerging markets, capturing value and growth

The Fund normally invests at least 80% of its total assets in equity securities of companies located in emerging markets and investments that are tied economically to emerging markets, such as common stock, preferred and preference stock, depositary receipts, including American Depositary Receipts, Global Depositary Receipts, European Depositary Receipts, Swedish Depositary Receipts and other types of depositary receipts, real estate investment trusts (“REITs”) and exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”) that invest in emerging markets securities. The Investment Manager primarily invests in common stock, but will use those other security types referred to above if, for example, they provide greater liquidity, the Fund cannot access common stock through a local market, or the yield rate of preferred or preference stock is deemed favourable. Typically, less than 10% of the Fund’s Net Asset Value will be invested in ETFs, and investment in ETFs will be limited to 15% of the Fund’s Net Asset Value.

The Fund generally invests in companies with market capitalisations of US$500 million or greater at the time of investment. However, the Fund may invest in smaller market capitalisation companies if, based on the quantitative investment approach described below, it finds an attractive investment with a lower market capitalisation and sufficient liquidity. The Fund may invest in any industry or sector, but generally will not invest more than 25% of its total assets in the equity securities of companies in a single industry. Typically, the Fund will hold a diversified portfolio of over 80 equity securities.

The Investment Manager uses a quantitative investment approach to purchase and sell equity securities and those other investments as detailed above for the Fund. The Investment Manager’s quantitative investment approach uses a proprietary computer model that analyses historical financial data, or “factors,” to assist in selecting investments as detailed above. The model currently analyses “stock specific” factors relating to valuation, growth, technical indicators (such as stock price momentum), competitive strength, and “top-down” factors relating to macroeconomics, currency, country and economic sector. Currently, the valuation factor category receives the highest overall weight in the model and stock-specific factors comprise approximately 75% of the score for a company. For each stock, the relative weight assigned to each stock-specific factor differs depending on its classification (for example, value, growth, momentum, capitalisation or other classifications). The relative weights of these stock-specific factors are sometimes referred to as “contextual weights.”. As the Investment Manager is continually seeking to improve model performance, the factors and their weightings in the model may change over time, or if the classification of a stock changes. By ranking companies based on a combination of these factors, the Investment Manager seeks to identify a portfolio of investments that will outperform the MSCI EM Index. In addition to its quantitative research, the Investment Manager’s fundamental research analysts review the quantitative outputs to attempt to identify and address special issues, such as significant corporate actions or management changes, which are difficult to detect quantitatively.

Please see the Prospectus and Supplement for more information. Please contact [email protected] for a Fund Application.

Nav*
€24.62
Inception
February 10, 2016
ISIN
IE00BWT3P209
Benchmark
MSCIEmergingMarkets
Minimum investment
€1,000,000
Total expense ratio
1.24%
*As of October 30, 2025
Download Fact Sheet Download Prospectus
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Strategy overview

The portfolio managers discuss our Emerging Markets strategy.

Portfolio managers

Quantitative Portfolio Manager
Head of Quantitative Research
Quantitative Portfolio Manager
Quantitative Portfolio Manager
Quantitative Portfolio Manager

Performance

Table Header QTD YTD 1 year3 years5 years Since inception
Fund 10.5%12.8%13.0%16.4%9.7%9.1%
MSCI Emerging Markets in EUR 10.8%13.0%12.2%11.8%7.5%9.1%
Table Header QTD YTD 1 year3 years5 years Since inception
Fund 10.5%12.8%13.0%16.4%9.7%9.1%
MSCI Emerging Markets in EUR 10.8%13.0%12.2%11.8%7.5%9.1%
Table Header 20242023202220212020201920182017
Fund 23.4%14.8%-17.5%4.7%6.4%18.4%-14.4%21.1%
MSCI Emerging Markets in EUR 15.3%6.5%-14.5%5.2%8.9%21.1%-9.9%21.0%
Table Header 20242023202220212020201920182017
Fund 23.4%14.8%-17.5%4.7%6.4%18.4%-14.4%21.1%
MSCI Emerging Markets in EUR 15.3%6.5%-14.5%5.2%8.9%21.1%-9.9%21.0%

Portfolio (as of September 30, 2025)

Benchmark:
Asset Allocation
Table Header Fund
Stocks 98.0%
Cash 2.0%
Fund Characteristics
Table Header Fund Benchmark
Holdings 172 1189
Weighted avg. market cap (US $MM) $179,993 $192,641
NTM price/earnings 10.3 14.0
Price/book value 1.6 2.1
NTM EPS revision (wtd. avg.) 20.63 9.86
Net assets $12,150,761.65 -
TOP 10 ACTIVE HOLDINGS
Security Country Active weight*
Tencent Holdings Ltd. China 1.9%
China Construction Bank Corp. China 1.6%
REC Ltd. India 1.1%
Pop Mart International Group Ltd. China 1.0%
Ping An China 0.9%
3SBio, Inc. China 0.9%
Wiwynn Corp. Taiwan 0.8%
NetEase, Inc. China 0.8%
Accton Technology Corp. Taiwan 0.8%
China Hongqiao Group Ltd. China 0.8%

A "weighted average” measures a characteristic by the market capitalization of each stock. Price/book ratio is the weighted average of the price/book ratios of all the stocks in a portfolio. The P/B ratio of a company is calculated by dividing the market price of its stock by the company’s per-share book value. The price/earnings ratio is the weighted average of the price/earnings ratios of the stocks in a portfolio. “Earnings-per-share” is the portion of a company’s profit allocated to each outstanding share of common stock. “Earnings-per-share year-over-year estimate growth (next 12 months)” is the average next-12-months earnings-per-share estimate from one year ago for an individual company compared with that estimate today; note that this calculation is done on a company-by-company basis and is aggregated through a weighted average based on the individual company’s weight in the corresponding index. Also note that this characteristic is supplied directly by MSCI. Data is from the Investment Adviser’s accounting system and will differ from the Fund’s official net asset value for reasons including: differences in the accrual of certain expenses, income, and recognition of cash flows, and fund holidays.

*Active defined as Fund weight minus MSCI EM Index weight. Holdings are subject to change.

SECTOR WEIGHTS
Sector Fund Benchmark
Information Technology 25.1% 25.5%
Financials 19.5% 22.2%
Communication Services 13.9% 10.5%
Consumer Discretionary 12.9% 13.6%
Industrials 9.7% 6.6%
Materials 5.9% 6.5%
Health Care 4.0% 3.4%
Consumer Staples 2.4% 4.0%
Real Estate 2.2% 1.4%
Energy 1.7% 3.9%
Utilities 0.8% 2.3%
TOP 10 COUNTRIES
Country Strategy Benchmark
China 34.3% 31.2%
Taiwan 19.9% 19.4%
South Korea 15.2% 11.0%
India 12.3% 15.2%
Brazil 4.1% 4.3%
South Africa 2.2% 3.5%
United Arab Emirates 1.5% 1.4%
Turkey 1.2% 0.5%
Indonesia 0.9% 1.1%
Peru 0.8% 0.3%
Regional Allocation
  • Emerging Asia 83.5%
  • Emerging Europe, Middle East, Africa 7.1%
  • Emerging Latin America 6.3%
  • North America 0.6%
  • Pacific 0.5%
  • Multi Region Emerging (ETF) 0.0%

Commentary (As of September 30, 2025)

Highlights

  • Led by emerging Asia, EM equities continued their upward trajectory in September.
  • The tariff outlook for Emerging Markets (“EM”) exports has generally improved, which has also bolstered EM assets. Reciprocal tariff rates in South Korea and Taiwan have been reduced and many goods, notably semiconductors, are excluded from the reciprocal tariffs currently. US tariff negotiations with China are ongoing and the situation is complex – the average effective tariff rate far exceeds the reciprocal tariff rate due to various other tariffs on specific goods. We are overweight Chinese stocks in the Portfolio due in part to compelling valuation and growth characteristics.
  • In South Korea, corporate governance continues to improve. The Korean parliament passed an amendment to the Korean Commercial Act, which expands companies’ boards of directors’ fiduciary duties to also consider the interests of minority shareholders. Additionally, multiple bills are being considered which would require or strongly encourage companies to cancel treasury shares, which would benefit minority shareholders.

Portfolio Attribution

The Fund underperformed the Index in September 2025. We use both bottom-up “stock-specific” and top-down factor categories to seek to forecast alpha for the stocks in the Portfolio’s investable universe. Our bottom-up growth and competitive strength factors were positive indicators in September. Our valuation, corporate events, and technical (price momentum) were negative indicators during the month. Our top-down country/sector aggregate factor was a positive indicator while the currency and macroeconomic factors were negative during the month.

Investment Outlook

Influenced by weakness in the labor market, the US Federal Reserve (“Fed”) cut its target interest rate by 25 basis points in September. With the core Consumer Price Index (CPI) well above the Fed’s two percent target, the path to achieving the central bank’s dual mandate of maximum employment and stable prices appears difficult. Stable to falling US interest rates coupled with US dollar weakness has historically provided a positive backdrop for EM assets. The tariff outlook for EM exports has generally improved, which has also bolstered EM assets. Reciprocal tariff rates in South Korea and Taiwan have been reduced and many goods, notably semiconductors, are excluded from the reciprocal tariffs currently. US tariff negotiations with China are ongoing and the situation is complex – the average effective tariff rate far exceeds the reciprocal tariff rate due to various other tariffs on specific goods. We are overweight Chinese stocks in the Portfolio due in part to compelling valuation and growth characteristics. Tariff rates levied on India remain elevated, due in part to a punitive tariff for buying Russian oil. We are underweight Indian stocks in the Portfolio due in part to unfavorable valuation, growth, and price momentum characteristics.

In South Korea, corporate governance continues to improve. The Korean parliament passed an amendment to the Korean Commercial Act, which expands companies’ boards of directors’ fiduciary duties to also consider the interests of minority shareholders. Additionally, multiple bills are being considered that would require or strongly encourage companies to cancel treasury shares, which would benefit minority shareholders. Typically, share buybacks by a company are positive for all shareholders. However, Korean companies have historically used share buybacks as a tool to increase controlling shareholder control by reducing the number of shares owned by minority shareholders. Meanwhile, minority shareholders do not enjoy the typical benefit of a buyback since the purchased shares still exist in the company’s treasury. The proposed amendment would, once again, make share buybacks positive for minority shareholders. We are overweight South Korean stocks in the Portfolio due in part to favorable valuation, growth, price momentum, and top-down characteristics.

The market commentary expresses the portfolio managers' views as of the date of this report and should not be relied on as research or investment advice regarding any stock. These views and any portfolio holdings and characteristics are subject to change. There is no guarantee that any forecasts made will come to pass. Any securities identified and described do not represent all of the securities purchased, sold or recommended for the Fund. Index returns assume reinvestment of dividends and capital gains, and assume no management, custody, transaction or other expenses. The reader should not assume that an investment in any securities identified was or will be profitable. MSCI has not approved, reviewed or produced this report, makes no express or implied warranties or representations and is not liable whatsoever for any data in the report. You may not redistribute the MSCI data or use it as a basis for other indices or investment products.

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