Global Investing

Fund managers searching for yield are increasing exposure to frontier markets (FM) as a diversification from emerging markets (EM), as the latter have been offering negative relative returns since January, according to MSCI data.

Barings Asset Management  said on Monday it plans to launch a frontier markets fund in coming weeks, with a projected 70 percent exposure to frontier markets such as Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Sri Lanka and Ukraine.

Emerging markets indices posted relative negative returns compared to developed and frontier markets in the first quarter, index compiler MSCI’s 2013 quarterly survey showed. The main emerging benchmark returned a negative 2.14 percent for the quarter, with the BRIC index also posting a loss, though a better performance of Latin American markets offered some promising signs  with a 0.48 percent increase.

Southeast Asia posted the top returns, with double-digit figures from the MSCI Philippines Index of 17.87 percent growth and Indonesia returning 13.19 percent. That was a stark contrast to the Brazil, Russia, India, China and Korean indices, which delivered negative Q1 results.

Weak relative performance has turned investors further afield to boost earnings with top performers Kenya, UAE and Bulgaria returning more than 20 percent. In 2012 the Kenyan benchmark rose 54 percent, the data showed.

Frontier markets have an air of adventure and unpredictability about them. One is tempted to ask: Who knows what will happen next?

The figures tell a different story.

In fact, emerging markets overtook frontier markets in terms of volatility of returns as long ago as June 2006, as a recent HSBC report shows. And a more significant milestone was passed a year later, in June 2007, when even developed markets overtook frontier markets in terms of volatility of returns.

Since then, frontier markets have without fail stayed more stable than developed and emerging markets. In 2012, the gap between the closely-correlated developed/emerging markets bloc and frontier markets widened even further as returns in the latter seem to be becoming even more stable. According to David Wickham, EM investment director at HSBC Global Asset Management:

The International Monetary Fund this week painted yet another gloomy picture, cutting its 2012 forecast for Africa along with most other countries around the world. In its latest World Economic Outlook, the IMF shaved its 2012 projections for Africa to 5 percent from 5.4 percent.

But it’s not all gloomy for Africa, once called  ”the doomed continent” by the Economist. With its eyes set on next year, the IMF revised up its 2013 outlook to 5.7 percent from 5.3 percent.

Sharing this optimistic outlook for Africa’s future is Africa-focused Russian bank Renaissance Capital:

Belize’s so-called superbond has not proved to be a super investment proposition.

The country has set out proposals on how it might restructure the bond, which bundled together several old debts (hence its name) and the ideas have been greeted with horror by investors. Essentially, the government wants to reduce the principal of the bond by almost half while extending the maturity by 13 years, according to one of the proposals.  Interest rates on the issue, at 8.5 percent this year, could be cut to a flat 3.5 percent. Or investors could accept a 1 percent rate that steps up to 4 percent after 2019.

Markets had been expecting a restructuring ever since Prime Minister Dean Barrow said in February the country could not afford to keep up debt repayments. The bond duly fell after his comments but picked up a bit in recent months after Barrow assured investors the restructuring would be amicable.  Investors holding the bond are now nursing year-to-date losses of 24 percent, according to JP Morgan.

Who would have thought it. As fears over the euro zone’s fate, Chinese economic growth and Middle Eastern politics drive investors toward safe-haven U.S. and German bonds, some have apparently been going the other way.  According to JPMorgan, bonds from so-called frontier economies such as Pakistan, Belarus and Jordan (usually considered high-risk assets) have performed exceptionally well, doing far better in fact than their peers from mainstream emerging markets.  The following graphic from JPM which runs the NEXGEM sub-index of frontier debt, shows that returns on many of these bonds are running well into the double digits.

NEXGEM returns of 8.4 percent  are on par with the S&P 500, writes JPMorgan and outstrip all other emerging bond categories. Clearly one reason is the lack of correlation with the mainstream asset classes, many of which have been selling off for weeks amid growth fears and in the run up to French and Greek elections.  Second, investors who tend to buy these bonds usually have a pretty high risk-tolerance anyway as they keep their eyes on the double-digit yields they offer.

So year-to-date returns on Ivory Coast’s defaulted debt are running at over 40 percent on hopes that the country will resume payments on its $2.3 billion bond after June. The underperformer is Belize whose bonds suffered from a default scare at the start of the year.

Hundreds of Bangladeshi investors have rioted on the streets of Dhaka in recent days over stock prices that have plunged nearly 18 percent since the start of the year. Police used batons and tear gas to break up protests that blocked roads around the country’s main stock exchange.

If this sounds familiar, rewind back to 2008 to another part of the Indian subcontinent, when angry investors rampaged through the Karachi Stock Exchange after a series of precipitous share price falls.

In less developed markets, retail investors often bear the brunt of losses as they tend to account for the bulk of total investment rather than institutional players.

Frontier markets are one of the fastest-growing investment regions with high growth potential in resource-rich continents like Africa drawing investors who are keen to diversify their investment.

But one of the concerns has been that a speedy development would lead to environmental damage.

London-based alternative investment specialist Greenleaf Global is trying to mix frontier markets and environmentally friendly investment, saying that a changing global environment brings investment opportunities in biofuel, biomass and anaerobic digestion (generating electricity from renewable sources).