AB emerging consumer portfolio manager Tassos Stassopoulos said: “This approach offers diversification from traditional emerging-market equity strategies in two ways – by focusing on emerging-market consumers and by being benchmark-unaware.”
“We research the opportunity as we would if we were a company entering the market.
“We talk to consumers about their spending habits, hopes, dreams and aspirations, and then work out which companies are going to benefit.
“By doing this, we aim to avoid the trap of being captive to stocks listed in the indices, which we believe are really yesterday’s success stories, not tomorrow’s.
“It also helps us to expose, and work to avoid, many myths that have grown up around the emerging-consumer opportunity,” Mr Stassopoulos said.
VicSuper chief investment officer Oscar Fabian said that AB’s emerging consumer strategy will diversity the fund’s emerging market equities exposure.
In a statement issued by AB, it was indicated that emerging market consumers – according to research conducted by McKinsey Consulting – will be spending approximately US$30 trillion a year by 2025.
“[Mr] Stassopoulos noted that he and his team had visited 13 countries since 2011, spending more than 100 days to conduct grassroots research. The countries included Mexico, Peru, Chile, West and South Africa, India, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and China,” the statement said.
