Interview With Ninety One’s Varun Laijawalla – EM Out of Favor, But They Could Look Very Different in 10 Years

Sentiment on emerging markets has been extremely negative over the last 15 years, but one manager thinks that’s changing. In an interview with Hedge Fund Alpha, Varun Laijawalla of Ninety One shared how he got into asset management, what he’s learned along the way, and why he thinks the general view of EMs will change in the coming years. He also shared some stock picks in the United Arab Emirates.

Background on Varun Laijawalla

Laijawalla is portfolio manager of Ninety One’s Emerging Market Equity strategy and Emerging Market ex-China Equity strategy. He’s been at the firm 10 years, and before joining Ninety One, he was based in Asia, doing sell-side research at Macquarie Capital Securities, where he held an Asia ex-Japan research sales role. Before that, Laijawalla was based in London, starting his career as a management consultant.

Although he grew up in the Netherlands, he’s originally from India, so he says emerging markets are in his blood. Laijawalla’s family left India when he was four years old.

“My granddad found an advert in the paper for a job in Holland and said to my dad, you'd be crazy if you didn't apply,” he said. “That was 1988, so he applied, he got the job, and moved… my mom and me out to Holland, and we were the first people in our family to move abroad. So we moved to Holland in in 1988, and the plan was to spend a couple of years there, save a bit of money, and then go back home to Bombay.”

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Growing up in the Netherlands

Laijawalla’s parents ended up never leaving the Netherlands, so they’ve been there nearly 40 years. He said growing up in Holland was “a beautiful experience.”

“It was an unusual experience in that the job offer that my dad took up was to join a Dutch fashion company, a clothing company, but the founder of the company was an Indian guy,” Laijawalla added. “The core of the company were a handful of Indian operators, all living and working in the same one-mile radius, which made it very easy for us being implanted into Holland to sort of integrate in quite a nice, leisurely way, and so we never felt out of place. [The] locals were very friendly, very welcoming.”