Top Ranking for Gartmore’s SICAV Latin America Fund

One year since Chris Palmer became Head of Global Emerging Markets at Gartmore, his SICAV Latin America Fund which he has managed since inception in 2004 is established as the top performing Fund amongst its peers. The Fund returned an impressive 64% in the year to May, outperforming the sector average by more than 7% and its nearest rival by almost 1.5%.

Latin American equities have performed strongly in recent years as a result of improved trade volumes arising from rising global economic growth and better pricing for global mineral and agricultural commodities. While much has been written about China’s voracious appetite for Latin America’s natural resources, Chris Palmer believes that structural changes within Latin America’s financial markets are of equal importance.

In Brazil, inflation is close to the 3% mark, the lowest level since 1999. This allowed its central bank to cut the benchmark lending rate again in June to 12%. As a result, Brazil’s capital intensive infrastructure and housing industries are able to play a part in economic growth and create jobs. According to Chris Palmer, “Lower real interest rates should help shift Brazil's vast pension and savings industry towards more aggressive purchases of domestic equities. The shift to lower interest rates, coupled with the rapid growth of institutional pension assets under management, has promoted stable fixed income markets and strong equity returns in Chile, Peru, Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina. We are really excited about the prospects for local institutional investors to play a larger role in Latin America's equity markets”.

Gartmore’s SICAV Latin America Fund ranks as the top performing Fund in its sector over both 1 and 5 years. Chris Palmer’s Emerging Markets desk has Euro 3 billion of funds under management, over Euro 500 million in Latin America.