Pictet-Asian Local Ccy Debt R EUR

Analyst Report
Morningstar's Take
|11/07/2024

by Arvind Subramanian
Pictet has announced that head of emerging-markets fixed income Mary-Therese Barton will move to a new role as Pictet’s fixed income CIO as of 1 Oct 2023. She will replace current fixed-income CIO Raymond Sagayam, who will join Pictet’s board of partners.

Alper Gocer, who currently leads the emerging-markets sovereign debt team and is the lead manager on its local-currency emerging-markets debt portfolios, will replace Barton as the leader of the broader emerging-markets debt platform in October, overseeing both the sovereign and corporate emerging-markets debt teams. He will continue to lead the sovereign debt specialists and will remain lead portfolio manager for Pictet-Emerging Local Currency Debt.

Gocer is not a primary day-to-day manager on the Pictet-Asian Local Currency Debt strategy, but he is a key contributor to the portfolio, both in his role as the group’s asset-class lead for local-currency debt and as chair of the investment meetings where the group formulates its macro views.

While these changes mean an increase in Gocer’s workload, they do not have a material impact on our view of Pictet-Asian Local Currency Debt. The strategy’s lead day-to-day managers, Carrie Liaw and Ali Bora Yigitbasioglu, remain in place. Furthermore, Gocer’s increased administrative workload will be mitigated by hard-currency specialist Rob Simpson’s move to a new position overseeing the group’s portfolio analysts, strategists and client portfolio managers. (Simpson will remain a member of the emerging-markets sovereign debt investment team focusing on blended strategies, and the group also plans to hire an additional hard-currency specialist in the coming months.)

Pictet-Asian Local Currency Debt retains its People and Process ratings of Average and Morningstar Medalist Ratings ranging from Neutral to Negative.

 
The deeply collaborative and experienced investment team at Pictet Asian Local Currency Debt has demonstrated exceptional stability, warranting an upgrade of its People Pillar rating to Above Average from Average.

The strategy is led by day-to-day managers Carrie Liaw and Ali Bora Yigitbasioglu, who joined in May 2018 and July 2020, respectively. The duo averages more than two decades of investment experience and brings complementary skills, with Liaw specializing in rates, while Yigitbasioglu specializes in foreign exchange and derivatives. The pair is part of an eight-member emerging-markets sovereign team, notable for its rich experience and relative stability, with no departures since 2018. Rounding out the manager lineup is industry veteran Alper Gocer, who provides investment oversight to the strategy and leads the group’s daily discussions, where team members formulate market views and evaluate trade ideas.

The investment process blends the team’s top-down macroeconomic outlook with bottom-up views on individual sovereign issuers in a collaborative approach involving the entire emerging-markets sovereign debt team. The group’s macro analysis is a strength, and the fund’s off-benchmark bets, which typically comprise exposure to developed-markets debt and currencies, have contributed positively to performance over the years. However, the strategy’s relatively narrow Asia investment universe constrains the investment process, and the team has not yet been able to replicate the consistent success it experienced in its global emerging-markets bond strategies.

The strategy stumbled in 2023, as the team's overweight duration stance hampered performance amid rising yields and a resilient global economy. Despite this setback, the managers have built an excellent track record by adeptly managing macro risks and utilizing off-benchmark currency and rates plays. Under the current leadership from May 2018 through May 2024, the strategy has outpaced the majority of its category peers, with its stellar performance in 2022—driven by the fund’s off-benchmark short US rates position and tactical local currency bets—providing a significant boost to returns.
 
Morningstar Medalist Rating™A strong management duo backed by a high-quality team earns an upgrade.
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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