Ashish Swarup has stepped down as manager of Stewart Investors Global Emerging Markets Leaders and Stewart Investors Asia Pacific. He has resigned from the group with immediate effect.
Tom Prew was previously co-manager of the Global Emerging Markets Leaders Fund. He will continue to run the fund alongside Chris Grey, an existing member of the team who will be promoted from an investment analyst role.
Tom Allen remains co-manager of the Asia Pacific Fund along with new appointment David Gait. Gait is a highly-experienced Asian investor and already runs a number of other Asian and emerging markets funds at Stewart Investors.
While these managers will have overall responsibility for the funds, they work as part of a close-knit team. They share many of the same investment ideas, have regular discussions and receive input from the wider team. We're also confident more junior members of the team have significant support from more senior and experienced analysts and portfolio managers.
The team has also used the same investment philosophy and process for many years. For these funds they'll continue to look for quality companies they think can grow sustainably over the long term. These businesses should have the potential to grow their earnings, have an advantage that others struggle to compete with, and be run by a reputable management team.
For these reasons we don't think investors need to take any action as a result of the management changes, providing the funds still meet their objectives.
We think the team still has the potential to deliver good returns for investors over the long run, though of course there are no guarantees. That said, Stewart Investors has restricted the amount of money that can be invested in these funds in order to keep them a manageable size. Therefore they don't currently feature on the Wealth 50 list of our favourite funds.
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