Page 32 - Investment Advisor July/August 2022
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2022 Asset Manager of the Year



                     Global, International, Emerging Market Equity Manager of the Year

                 Acadian Asset Management
                 Acadian International ADR SMA



                     cadian  International ADR SMA
                 A invested in high-quality, attrac-
                 tively priced companies to produce
                 strong results last year, earning it the
                 Asset Manager of the Year Award in
                 the  International,  Global,  Emerging
                 Markets category. Employing both top-
                 down and bottom-up approaches, the
                 managers  oversee  a  portfolio  of  50  to
                 100 core large-cap developed market
                 ADRs and a relatively modest — rough-
                 ly 20% — emerging market exposure,
                 according to Envestnet analysts.    Vladimir Kravets                Sean Geary
                   In 2021, the portfolio returned 17.4%,
                 outpacing the MSCI ACWI ex-US       Title: VP, Relationship Management  Title: Fund Manager
                 Index by 9.6 percentage points, the   Years with present firm: 7    Years with firm: 7
                 analysts noted.                     Years in financial services: 15  Years in financial services: 15
                   The  portfolio  team’s  background  in
                 quantitative analysis; its impressive model
                 for capturing multiple alpha sources and   Investment/asset class: Global,   returns. And this really happened across
                 its  integration  of  fundamental  research   International, Emerging Markets  the board for our portfolios at Acadian,
                 helps give the program a competitive edge,   Asset management firm:    leading to a fantastic year for us.”
                 according to the Envestnet analysts. The   Acadian Asset Management   Well-diversified portfolios that have
                 managers rely on numerous aggregate fac-                            prudent  risk  controls  are  key  to  the
                 tors, filtered through value, growth, qual-  Year firm founded: 1986  firm’s investment process, he said.
                 ity and technical indicator categories, to   Number of employees: 362  In 2018, long before  Russia  invaded
                 develop stock performance forecasts.  AUM as of April 30, 2022: $102B  Ukraine, Geary explained, Acadian
                   “Acadian has been a pioneer in sys-                               placed more controls on Russia and
                 tematic investing for over 35 years, with                           Russian financials. “So our global inter-
                 a talented, 100-person investment team, and so we really   national strategies were underweight Russia, and we held no
                 embrace  experience,  discipline  and  cutting-edge  research,”   Russian exposure in the ADR portfolios.”
                 Vladimir Kravets, Acadian vice president and relationship   The portfolio managers expect the current heightened vola-
                 manager, told Investment Advisor.                  tility to persist for the rest of this year and into 2023. “Investors
                   The team doesn’t time their entry points, especially not in   are going to be challenged with decisions around the implica-
                 today’s volatile market atmosphere, Kravets said. The firm’s   tions of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, supply chain disrup-
                 process incorporates fundamental signals and has performed   tions continuing from the implications of COVID, inflation and
                 well in both value and growth environments. “So we’re able to   central bank policy,” Geary said. The volatility and dislocations
                 do well both in the short and longer time periods,” he added.  provide an excellent opportunity for stock-picking, he said.
                   Sean Geary, Acadian vice president and portfolio manager,   In terms of domestic versus international investments,
                 noted that in 2021, “well-valued companies rallied while more   “one thing to consider is the U.S. markets have been a source
                 growth-oriented firms struggled. Acadian’s multifactor process   of excess returns for several years now. And that persistent
                 is designed to capture these dislocations in the markets. And so   source of excess returns may be hard to sustain, especially in
                 last year we delivered over 6% excess return in the markets.”  light of the very high profitability that we’re starting the year
                   He added that “stock selection was a key component of this.   with,” Geary said. “International markets may have the oppor-
                 So exposure to high-quality names, names that surprised on   tunity to outperform given both their more cyclical nature, as
                 the upside for growth potential as well as names that are well-  well as their relative advantage from a valuation standpoint,
                 valued relative to their peers, all contributed to those excess   compared to U.S. securities,” he added. — DWB



              30 INVESTMENT ADVISOR JULY/AUGUST 2022 | ThinkAdvisor.com
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