Asset manager Capital Management has appointed Fergus Argyle as a Senior Analyst and Assistant Manager of the Somerset Frontier Markets Strategy. He will join Somerset Capital’s Emerging and Frontier Markets investment team and work closely with the Lead Manager of the Somerset Frontier Markets Strategy, George Birch-Reynardson.
Mr Arygle joins from Mobius Capital Partners, where he was an Investment Manager and instrumental in setting up the Mobius Investment Trust. Before joining Mobius, he worked at Somerset for four years as a Senior Analyst. He has also worked at BlackRock and Herald Investment Management.
Oliver Crawley, partner and Head of Marketing at Somerset Capital, said in a statement: “We are delighted that Fergus has decided to re-join Somerset. During his time at Mobius, Fergus gained invaluable experience and we believe he will make a huge contribution to our Frontier Markets Strategy and the wider investment team. His work on company engagement has been particularly impressive and complements our own approach to ESG and sustainable investing.”
Fergus Argyle added: “I am looking forward to working closely with George and focussing on frontier markets, which offer huge opportunities. We see significant long-term growth in the smaller emerging countries we are invested in, where the technology revolution is driving rapid change in labour force opportunities, a lack of incumbent services allows for leapfrogging, and now – as the S&P 500 reaches and breaches new highs – fewer investors are looking at the space. This also creates a fertile environment to actively engage with management teams: we will seek to proactively drive ESG improvement and incremental returns, alongside our tried and tested core process of investing in high quality, long-runway businesses.”
Emerging markets seems to be an area of focus for many firms recently. Thomas Christiansen, Deputy Head of Emerging Market Fixed Income at UBP spoke to Fundeye following its recent hire in the area, “UBP continues to see emerging market debt as strategic for the firm. The asset class has grown in recent years, with the sovereign debt universe expanding significantly to more than 75 countries today.”
He also viewed that frontier markets are important, stating, “to take advantage of the increased opportunity set the expanded universe offers, we launched the UBAM EM Frontier Fund earlier this year. In line with our investment process across the broader EMD team, which focuses on fundamental bottom-up analysis, we wanted to grow our coverage of the sovereign debt universe.”
