Morgan Stanley adds new UCITS offering

Originally published on 18 December 2017

Morgan Stanley has announced the recent addition of a new sub-fund, Carrhae Capital Long/Short Emerging Market Equity UCITS Fund, under FundLogic Alternatives plc, a UCITS umbrella fund with segregated liability between sub-funds. The fund provides exposure to the investment strategy followed by Carrhae Capital LLP’s Master Fund LTD, which aims to generate returns with less volatility than emerging market equities, and little to no correlation to other asset classes. The FundLogic Alternatives plc platform currently has approximately US$3.4 billion in AUM.

Carrhae Capital was founded in 2011 by co-founders Ali Akay, Rob Kirkwood and Adrian Headon. Akay, who began his career as a business strategy analyst at McKinsey & Company, has managed capital across global emerging markets since 2003 at firms such as HBK and SAC.

Carrhae’s investment strategy seeks to capture idiosyncratic alpha from emerging markets through fundamental, bottom up portfolio construction of longs and shorts, on which macro insights, developed through experience, are overlaid. The goal is to deliver high quality risk-adjusted returns.

“We are pleased to announce the launch of the Carrhae Capital Long/Short Emerging Market Equity UCITS Fund on the FundLogic Alternatives platform,” said Will Smith, Head of Distribution for the FundLogic Alternatives plc platform at Morgan Stanley. Smith added, “Carrhae Capital offers access to an established emerging market focused team and demonstrates Morgan Stanley’s commitment to creating a diversified platform of UCITS funds on Fundlogic”.

Commenting on the launch, Akay, CIO of Carrhae Capital, said “We are excited to make our strategy available to UCITS investors for the first time. The opportunity set in Emerging Market equities looks the best we have seen it in many years – characterised by a synchronised global economic recovery, broader EM resilience to the prospect of higher US rates, and far reduced competition for ideas in our areas of focus. With stock correlations now close to a 20 year low, it is a very encouraging backdrop for a long/short approach to this inefficient asset class”.