Threadneedle's Latin America fund favours Mexico and Brazil

Following President Chavez comments regarding potential nationalisation of the country’s utilities, such as the largest phone company, CANTV (CA Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela), Threadneedle Asset Management wishes to announce that it does not hold any Venezuelan equities in its funds.

Jules Mort, manager of the Threadneedle Latin America Fund, commented: “We have always been aware of this kind of political risk, and consequently have not invested any of our clients' funds in this market - a major contributor to the fund's stellar outperformance. The fund has focused on two major markets, Brazil and Mexico, because of their better corporate governance and lower political risk.

" In most emerging markets the investment climate has been improving steadily in recent years with more sustainable economic growth aided by orthodox economic policy and rising commodity prices. However, although in general things are improving, there are still specific risks as Venezuela demonstrates, despite its oil bonanza. It is part of our added value as fund managers to understand and mitigate these risks."

The Threadneedle Latin America Fund had a weighting of 53.4% in Brazil and 33.0% in Mexico at the end of last year. The Threadneedle Latin America Fund has delivered 172.78% over three years. Threadneedle manages $2.6bn of dedicated Latin Equities and has over £70 billion in total assets under management.