Pioneer Investments has announced several developments to its Emerging Market and High Yield Fixed Income capability in its London investment hub. Yerlan Syzdykov, Senior Portfolio Manager Emerging Markets and High Yield Fixed Income, and Lead manager of Emerging Markets Bond strategy has been appointed Head of Emerging Markets – Bond & High Yield.
Yerlan, who will remain lead portfolio manager for Pioneer Investments’ Emerging Market Debt strategies, will take on overall performance responsibility for all Emerging Markets & Euro High Yield investment strategies managed by a team of 6 portfolio managers. He takes over from Greg Saichin, who has resigned his position as Head of Emerging Markets and High Yield to pursue another opportunity outside the firm.
Yerlan has been involved in the managing of Pioneer Investments’ Emerging Market Debt strategies since 2000 and “has had a key role in evolving our investment capability in this area over the last 13 years”, highlights Pioneer Investments through a release. He will report into Mauro Ratto, Head of Emerging Markets.
Over the last few months, Pioneer Investments has been expanding its investment footprint in its Emerging Markets & High Yield team in London.
In order to help exploit attractive opportunities available in local currency emerging market debt and credits, notably loans, 2 new portfolio managers with local currency and loan expertise, will join the firm in August. Desmond English joins from Commerzbank as Portfolio Manager with a specific focus on loans. He has 16 years of experience in this area. Esther Law joins as co-manager on EM Debt Local Currency strategy with focus on local currency debt and relative value strategies. Esther has 15 years of experience in emerging markets, joining Pioneer Investments from Societe Generale.
Further, as part of the continued efforts to enhance Pioneer Investments’ research capacity, 3 dedicated research analysts have recently joined, bringing total headcount of the EM & High Yield team to 10 analysts, averaging 12 years of experience. Marina Vlasenko brings 13 years of experience to the firm and has taken responsibility for Emerging Market financials. Paul Cheung, an analyst of 6 years’ experience, and Ray Jian, 6 years, deepen our capacity to form views on real estate and industrials respectively.
“These additional hires will allow for a greater degree of specialisation among the investment team”, follows the firm adding that the specialist portfolio managers and analysts concentrating on specific segments of the fixed income market are dedicated to delivering the best in-house ideas. “Each specialist alpha strategy is deployed across a wide range of different Emerging Markets and High Yield Debt portfolios, with the aim of ensuring consistency and scalability in delivering performance”.
To strengthen the investment process, Pioneer Investments has been enhancing the use of Risk Budgeting across the Emerging Market & High Yield Fixed Income portfolios. By embedding propriety risk management systems fully into the heart of the investment process, “the objective is to increase the ability to deliver the goal of stable alpha generation to clients”.
Pioneer Investments conlcludes by saying that these enhancements and appointments “underline a high degree of continuity in the investment process. Further, we believe it will ensure the strengthening of a team based investment approach to portfolio construction across the Emerging Market & High Yield asset class and support the goal of investment excellence.”