Blue Sky group, manager of the KLM pension fund, has appointed Ashmore Investment Management, Bridgewater Associates and Pimco each to run a $85m mandate in emerging market debt.
Previously Blue Sky ran its emerging market debt on a passive basis but now believes an active approach may in fact pay dividends.
Gerben Wanningen, fund manager for fixed income and currencies at Blue Sky Group, says: “we have been invested passively in emerging market debt for some time but have observed that this is a highly imperfect market, driven by a complexity of economic, financial, and institutional factors unique to emerging markets. As a result a specialist can add significant value over the benchmark.”
Wanningen says the managers were appointed largely on their track records. Ashmore, for example, has produced gross excess returns of over 10% per annum.