RWC Partners confirms that it has hired a 15 person investment team previously at Everest Capital to establish a new Emerging, Frontier and Asia equity business. To support the team, RWC Partners has established a new office in Miami and is in the process of establishing an office in Singapore, subject to regulatory approvals.
The Emerging and Frontier market team is jointly headed up by John Malloy and James Johnstone. Malloy is primarily responsible for the Emerging Market portfolios and will be backed up by his co-portfolio manager, Thomas Allraum. Johnstone is responsible for the Frontier Market portfolios and backed up by his co-portfolio manager, Luis Laboy. Cem Akyurek has joined as the team’s Emerging Market economist, while in Singapore, Garret Mallal will serve as portfolio manager and Min Chen will be focused on Asian equity research. Additionally, RWC Partners has recruited Simon Onabowale to head up trading in Miami.
RWC Partners has established new funds replicating those previously managed by the team, covering long-only Emerging and Frontier markets and long-short Frontier and Asian strategies. The Frontier market strategies at Everest Capital were previously closed to new investors. Additionally, Tord Stallvik joins as a member of the RWC Management Committee and Head of US, with Frances Selby heading up US Institutional business development.
Dan Mannix, CEO of RWC Partners, commented: “An extremely unusual set of circumstances allowed us to recruit a fully formed institutional quality Emerging and Frontier markets investment team. It is incredibly hard to build a team of the depth and breadth that John and James have over the last few years and we are all very pleased to have been able to create the environment for the team to stay together. The support we have seen from John and James’ clients is a real endorsement of the quality of the investment capability and we have in the region of $1.3bn of committed capital and expect to exceed $1.5bn across the strategies in the near future.
“We have also taken the opportunity to strengthen our business development framework with the addition of Tord and Frances. Tord brings 25 years of experience from previous leadership roles in alternative and traditional asset managers, while Frances has been working in a senior capacity with US institutional investors for over 30 years.
“For RWC Partners this comes at an exciting time where our business has seen its assets double in the last two years on the back of strong performance and good inflows. We have developed our systems and infrastructure to support our rapidly growing business over the last two years and it is a great opportunity for us to launch an Emerging Market capability that is highly credible, fully formed, and at a point in the cycle where clients are starting to consider who they use in the Emerging Market space.”