The HSBC GIF Frontier Markets Fund, which is run by Andrea Nannini, invests in companies located or operating in such countries as Qatar, Nigeria, Pakistan and Romania.
The portfolio was created with the assets of HSBC New Frontiers, which was launched in February 2008 as a Luxembourg special investment fund, because frontier markets were not Ucits-compliant at that time. Nannini has managed HSBC New Frontiers since inception.
According to HSBC, Nannini will run the new fund with the same objective, against the same benchmark – the MSCI Frontier Markets Capped Index.
Countries in the index are typically at an earlier stage of economic, political and financial development, HSBC said, offering potentially higher growth rates and returns over the long term, but with a higher level of risk than “traditional emerging market nations”.
“The HSBC GIF Frontier Markets fund gels well with HSBC Global Asset Management’s objective of being the world’s leading manager and distributor of emerging market products,” said Andy Clark, the company’s head of wholesale for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
“HSBC’s research forecasts that by 2050 the collective size of the economies we call ‘emerging markets’ will increase five-fold and will be larger than the developed world, with 19 of the 30 biggest economies being from the emerging world.”
HSBC GIF Frontier Markets, which is available for sale in more than 30 countries as part of the HSBC Global Investment Funds range, has a minimum investment level of $5,000 for retail investors. The fund has a 1.75% annual management charge.
