Lazard Asset Management (LAM) has launched the Lazard International Compounders Portfolio (Institutional: ICMPX; Open: OCMPX), which is managed by the Lazard International Compounders team, led by Louis Florentin-Lee and Barnaby Wilson.
The fund invests primarily in companies listed outside of the United States, including those whose principal business activities are located in emerging market countries. The portfolio management team seeks to realise the fund’s investment objective primarily by investing in companies that the team considers to be “Compounders,” meaning high quality businesses that it believes can generate, and sustain, high levels of financial productivity (ie, return on equity, return on capital and cash flow return on investment). The fund may invest in securities of companies across the capitalisation spectrum and is expected to hold between 40 and 50 positions.
“Lazard and our US-based clients continue to be focused on differentiated ways to invest in international equities,” says John Reinsberg, Deputy Chairman and Head of Global and International Strategies at LAM. “Our team of over 60 equity research analysts have been focused on identifying what we call Compounders, high quality companies with growth characteristics, for many years now. We are pleased to now offer our US-based clients a dedicated way to invest in these companies.”
Members of the Lazard International Compounders team have been investing together in global and non-US equity markets for more than 15 years. The Fund has been launched based on the existing International Compounders strategy that the team has managed since its inception in 2016. Florentin-Lee and Wilson also manage a Global Compounders strategy, which launched in 2011.
As of 30 September, 2018, LAM managed USD51.9 billion of client assets across both fundamental and quantitative international equity strategies.
