Pictet-Global Emerging Debt HR EUR

Analyst Report
Morningstar's Take
|12/05/2023

by Shannon Kirwin
Pictet has announced that Mary-Therese Barton, head of Emerging Markets Debt at the firm, will be promoted to the role of head of Emerging Markets Fixed Income as of Aug. 1, 2022. Barton currently leads the 17-member team of portfolio managers and analysts responsible for the firm’s global and regional emerging-markets sovereign debt strategies. She now steps into a newly created role that adds an additional layer of oversight between the Emerging Markets Debt team leaders and Fixed Income CIO Raymond Sagayam. Previously, the heads of the Emerging Market Sovereign Debt, Emerging Market Corporate Debt, and greater China bond teams reported directly to the CIO; now they will report to Barton, who reports to Sagayam.

Portfolio manager Alper Gocer, who has served as the Emerging Market Sovereign team’s asset-class leader for local-currency emerging-markets debt since 2018, will take over from Barton as head of that team as of Aug. 1, 2022.

These changes are relevant to three strategies currently rated by Morningstar:

Pictet-Emerging Local Currency Debt, which is managed day to day by Gocer. This strategy has People and Process Pillar Ratings of Above Average, and Morningstar Analyst Ratings of Neutral for all share classes.

Pictet-Global Emerging Debt, which is managed day to day by Guido Chamorro and Robert Simpson. This strategy has a People Pillar rating of Above Average, a Process Pillar rating of Average, and Morningstar Analyst Ratings ranging from Bronze to Neutral.

Pictet-Asian Local Currency Debt, which is managed day to day by Carrie Liaw and Ali Bora Yigitbasioglu. The strategy and has People and Process Pillar Ratings of Average and its Morningstar Analyst Ratings range from Neutral to Negative.

The announced changes do not affect our fundamental view of these strategies’ capabilities and processes. All three strategies are managed within Pictet’s tight-knit Emerging Market Sovereign team, whose eight portfolio managers work collaboratively to implement investment ideas across their several portfolios and who are well-equipped to weather the reshuffle. Although Gocer’s workload has increased with his new administrative responsibilities, he is well supported by the rest of the team in managing the Emerging Local Currency Debt strategy and can be expected to effectively balance his new duties with running that portfolio. At all three strategies, Barton is expected to continue to contribute her macro views and to oversee the investment process alongside her new duties. We therefore maintain our conviction in the strategies’ current ratings.
 
Pictet-Global Emerging Debt is well-positioned to withstand some planned changes to its investment team. Parent company Pictet’s organisational stability, prudent approach to product management and increasing emphasis on long-term investment results in its manager compensation scheme have garnered it a Parent Pillar upgrade to Above Average from Average. As a result, this strategy’s cheapest euro-hedged HZ share classes are upgraded to Morningstar Medalist Ratings of Silver from Bronze, while its more expensive share classes receive a mix of Bronze and Silver ratings.

In May 2023, Pictet announced several planned changes to its emerging-markets debt group. Emerging-markets fixed-income head Mary-Therese Barton will take on the role of fixed-income CIO starting in October 2023, replacing Raymond Sagayam, who will be joining the firm’s board of partners. Alper Gocer, the recently appointed head of the emerging-markets sovereign debt team, will replace Barton as head of Pictet’s entire emerging-markets debt platform while continuing to lead the sovereign debt specialists. Robert Simpson, who joined veteran portfolio manager Guido Chamorro at the helm of this strategy in 2020, will step away in October 2023 to focus on blended and bespoke emerging-markets debt mandates. That will leave Chamorro as sole lead manager here, though Pictet plans to hire an experienced hard-currency emerging-markets bond specialist in the coming months to support him.

The changes introduce some uncertainty, but this strategy retains its key strengths. The emerging-markets sovereign debt team’s six portfolio managers and two investment strategists employ a deeply collaborative investment process, hashing out their top-down macro views as a group, and generating bottom-up investment ideas in pairs. Boasting an average of almost two decades of investing experience each, the other team members contribute valuable inputs to this strategy, and Robert Simpson’s continued participation in the group’s daily investment meetings, even after the change, will ensure additional continuity.

While the strategy’s bottom-up picks among hard-currency sovereign issues do not stand out from the crowd, the managers have built an excellent record through their deft management of macro risks and use of off-benchmark currency and rates plays. In the five years since Chamorro joined the leadership roster here, the fund's USD institutional share class has outperformed its JPMorgan EMBI Global Diversified Index benchmark as well as roughly three fourths of rivals in the global emerging-markets bond Morningstar Category. Reasonable fees on many of the strategy’s share classes add to its appeal in this generally expensive category.
 
Morningstar Medalist Rating™This strategy retains its appeal despite an upcoming change at the top.
To find out how Morningstar rates a fund click here.
Morningstar Pillars
PeopleAbove Average
ParentAbove Average
ProcessAverage
 
Morningstar Medalist RatingMorningstar assigns the Medalist Rating to funds that are qualitatively and quantitatively assessed through manager research and algorithmic processes. The assessment turns on three key “pillars” – People, Process, and Parent – that yield an estimate of how well a fund will perform before fees but after adjusting for risk.
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