Garanti Asset Management, the leading and the first asset management firm in Turkey, has announced its appointment as the manager of two Turkey specific UCITS funds established on global banking group BBVA’s Luxembourg SICAV platform. Actively managed Turkish Equity and Turkish Fixed Income Funds are open-ended, offering daily liquidity. Funds’ reference currency is TL and available in US Dollar and Euro denominated share classes.
“We are proud of Garanti Asset Management’s international recognition. During the fund approval process, the team went through a very detailed due diligence, conducted by BBVA and CSSF authorities” stated Gökhan Erun, Executive VP at Garanti Bank. He added “We have full confidence on the portfolio managers who have been successfully running similar strategies for our local pension funds. To show our commitment, we are seeding both funds with a total of 15 million Euros.”
Manuel Galatas, Head of BBVA Turkey added saying “We are glad to witness yet another global collaboration with our partner, Garanti; in line with BBVA’s international expansion strategy of teaming up with the leading local players. With its robust banking system, strong budget and primary balance and sustainable growth, Turkey has become one of the key players among the emerging economies. Hence we saw the necessity to enhance BBVA’s platform by adding two new products.”
Chief Investment Officer of Garanti Asset Management, Mahmut Kaya explained their investment approach as “A top-down macro analysis of the global and local markets to generate a house-view and bottom-up fundamental analysis to identify attractive risk-reward opportunities.” He added “Our teams’ strong local expertise is leveraged significantly by our extensive network of industry contacts, key decision and policy makers. We apply defined guidelines for portfolio construction and monitor exposures by an independent risk team using a robust infrastructure.”
At a time when being truly local is essential to maneuver country specific events while fully exploiting return opportunities, BBVA and Garanti Asset Management aim to accommodate the investor demand to Turkey by these two UCITS funds.
Garanti Asset Management specializes in long only and alternative strategies focused on Turkish Public Markets. Established in 1997, the firm has built an experienced team, robust infrastructure and extensive resources to analyze the local market dynamics and exploit return opportunities.