Standard Life Investments expands emerging market debt team as it launches new fund

Edinburgh-based global investment manager Standard Life Investments has added to its team of five emerging market debt specialists with the appointment of Imran Ahmad as Investment Director – Emerging Market Debt (EMD).

Imran, who has 12 years’ experience in the industry, joins the company from JP Morgan Asset Management where, since January 2013, he held the role of Currency Portfolio Manager.

Reporting to SLI’s head of emerging markets fixed income, Richard House, Mr Ahmad will be based in London and will have primary responsibility for emerging market currency overlay strategies across the entire EMD suite of funds.

Richard House said of the appointment: “Imran’s appointment reflects our commitment to, and belief in, the long term opportunities the EMD asset class has to offer.

“Imran’s skill set compliments the team’s approach to managing EM fixed income portfolios, namely high conviction macro based investing.

“The team which has over 77 years’ experience in the industry, works ‘hand-in-hand’ with the 40 strong fixed income and global emerging market equities teams, allowing us to seek out the best investment ideas and opportunities for our investors.”

Standard Life Investments this week announced the launch of an Emerging Market Debt (EMD) Unconstrained SICAV – the fourth Emerging Market Debt strategy in the suite of EMD products they offer to both retail and institutional investors.

SLI said the SICAV was launched in response to demand from European investors for access to the increasingly popular asset class and will be co-managed by Richard House and Kieran Curtis.

The SICAV will benefit from an opportunity set of more than 70 countries in which it can invest covering hard and local currency sovereign debt and hard currency corporate debt.

The investment approach will be highly selective in building a portfolio of best ideas from each segment of the asset class, irrespective of a benchmark weighting, thus allowing the greatest potential for maximising risk-adjusted returns and building a genuinely diverse portfolio within a risk controlled framework.