What does value investing have in common with the emerging markets?
This is not a trick question. Rather, it is a statement of sympathy. Just as value investors are used to going down the road less travelled alone, so are emerging market investors. The rest of the investment community has written off both sets of investors as dinosaurs buried six feet under and forgotten about us. The MSCI USA Growth Gross Total Return Index has compounded at a 20.0% annual rate of return during the decade ending in 2021.[1] On the other hand, the MSCI USA Value Gross Total Return Index has compounded at a 13.0% annual rate during the same period.[2] While a 13.0% annual return over a decade is an attractive return, the per-year return declines and the differential with the growth index increases as the decade progresses. The final nail in the coffin was the period from 2018 to 2020 when the value index delivered an annualized return of 5.6%, whereas the growth index returned 24.4%, leading many to write-off the value discipline as at best “flawed” (thus the market talk of value having failed to capitalize technological innovation in book value), and at worst “dead.”[3] With figures such as these backing one’s investment discipline, who needs enemies?
Emerging market investors carry the same cross as value investors with a 5.9% annualized return for the MSCI EM Total Return Index over the decade ending in 2021 competing against a 16.6% annualized return for the MSCI U.S. Gross Total Return Index over the same time period.[4]
The irony for value and emerging market investors alike is that we expect to outperform other investment styles / universes on an ex-ante basis. Indeed, many studies, such as the paper titled “What Has Worked in Investing” by Tweedy, Browne Company, LLC,[5] have noted the historical outperformance of value as an investment discipline during long periods of time, including from April 1968 to April 1990 in the United States. Emerging markets, for their part, offer the possibility of faster growth than developed economies owing to their higher rate of working population growth and greater room for productivity improvements.
Proponents of a value discipline face the uphill battle of reminding the rest of the market that prices are not simply numbers but form an integral part of the investment return equation. EM investors face a similar challenge when explaining the merits of the investment universe to U.S.-based savers as value investors face when advocating for their discipline to proponents of a growth-oriented approach. The added complication for those of us who focus on the emerging universe is that it has a more checkered history than value’s storied past in the US.
Emerging Markets Investing: From 2008 to Present
The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 exposed the unnaturally high level of consumer debt in the U.S. and its corresponding capital account surplus in China. Emerging markets would spend the following decade diversifying away from their economies’ dependence on trade deficits in developed countries, as well as commodity prices. China itself emerged as an engine of growth for the global economy during this period with its self-started credit impulses (stimulus spending) alongside the Federal Reserve’s and European Central Bank’s own credit cycles. The breadth and depth of capital markets in emerging economies continued to grow during the most recent decade, despite the double setback of restrained consumer debt growth in the U.S. and lower commodity prices following the Federal Reserve’s first attempt (of several) to normalize interest rates in 2013, as countries strived to promote GDP growth internally. Similarly, emerging market investing further evolved to focus more on individual stock selection, as opposed to old-school, top-down country / sector allocations. At present, capital markets have developed sufficiently to support allocations to individual companies over simply investing in these markets for tactical reasons primarily related to the statistical benefit of diversification for a portfolio.
Emerging Markets Value: Evidence of an Evolution
This latest step in the evolution of emerging market investing is what motivated some of us to apply a value discipline to the emerging market equity universe.
- First, it stands to reason that an investment universe with a $27.8 trillion market capitalization as of year-end 2019, should accommodate more investment strategies than simply growth, which was perhaps more appropriate in the year 2000 when the market capitalization of the universe was $2.3 trillion and rife with price volatility.[6]
- Second, there are very few funds pursuing a value discipline in the universe, signaling the potential to reap unharvested, value-oriented investment returns.
- Third, emerging market corporate governance and capital discipline have improved tremendously over the past two decades, with dividends accruing to shareholders growing from a cumulative $0.8 trillion between 2000 to 2009 to $2.5 trillion in the 2010-2019 time period.[7]
- Fourth, the investable universe outside of the index is significantly larger than that which passive funds restrict themselves to. As of December 31, 2019, the MSCI Emerging Markets index included 1,404 issuers with a free-float adjusted market capitalization of 6.2 trillion USD-equivalent. The universe overall contains 10,800 issuers with 27.8 trillion USD-equivalent of underlying capitalization. The 22 trillion USD-equivalent gap between MSCI’s float-adjusted capitalization and the total EM universe includes 10 trillion in excluded companies and 12 trillion in reduced weightings. This implies a capitalization coverage (defined as the ratio of index capitalization to total capitalization) of only 22%.[8] Thus, there is a vast EM opportunity set, as yet only explored by growth-oriented active funds, in which to find latent value.
Not only is income generation, and not simply growth, now part of the emerging market total return equation, but I have been pleasantly surprised to find various forms of value that in my estimation are distinct to the universe. Not only has the universe evolved to the point where individual stock selection by a value discipline can work, but it offers its own unique flavor of value.
Different Manifestations of Value
One way in which value manifests in the emerging markets that is different from the U.S. market relates to the traditional trade-off between growth and income. In the developed markets one usually has to invest in sunset industries, such as tobacco or printed media, to earn high dividend yields. The emerging markets, on the other hand, offer value opportunities such as an Abu Dhabi-based owner-operator of water-cooling facilities critical for the energy efficiency of air-cooling systems of buildings in many parts of the globe with hot climates. What was unique about this find is that the value on offer probably would not have persisted for so long in the U.S. In the emerging market context, this company was considered a “boring” stock, growing about 5% annually, and generating dividend yields of about 5% in an uneventful industry located in one of the less-travelled regions of the investment world, the Middle East.
While the growth rate from identifying such companies will never compete against that of a South Korean or Chinese technology firm, it’s proven sufficient for the market to eventually realize that this boring stock engaged in 20-year contracts with customers and yielding 5% was effectively a bond with moderate growth priced as equity. It took time, but the public equity market eventually recognized non-growth-oriented value in the emerging market context.
Another unique type of value on offer in the EM universe relates to the fact that the publicly-listed corporate sector has grown more rapidly than investor allocations to the universe or the diversity of strategies pursuing investment returns in these markets. This means that while most investors focus on the dominant and largest market – China – and other themes such as the growth of the middle class or technology stocks, there is a large and growing number of companies operating outside the purview of traditional, growth-focused investors, or mainstream EM indexes – the latter of which are mostly focused on issues of scale and replicability. Thus, one need not assume undue risk with a complicated, turnaround value stock idea to find an attractive valuation. A small, out-of-the-headlines country, such as the Czech Republic, offers attractively-priced listed banks, that operate in a stable, profitable manner, and enjoy excess capital even after accounting for a prospective dividend yield, in some cases, exceeding 5%. Again, this kind of investment return is unlikely to exist for long in an efficient capital market with more sophisticated investors that don’t simply pursue growth in a single-minded manner.
A third type of value that is unique to the EM universe relates to companies undergoing a change of control or management. In the U.S., one has to search for failing companies as a precursor of probable management or ownership change. The difference in the emerging markets is that in addition to underperforming businesses, an investor can harvest the value addition of a new management team through the normal course of full or partial privatization of state-owned enterprises (SOEs).
There’s a plethora of SOEs in the emerging universe due to the history of centrally planned economies in these countries. While SOEs have a deserved reputation for lackluster financial results, active investors have the potential to identify those that successfully transition from serving state interests to serving consumers and shareholders.
Waiting for the Transition
While the track record of value as a discipline in the U.S. waits to return to its storied past, emerging market investors look forward to traveling back to a future where value strategies co-exist alongside growth-oriented ones. It is remarkable indeed, that through the last 40 years of supply-side reform in emerging countries – transitioning through political regimes, monetary policy regimes, economic recessions, and debt and currency crises – the investable equity universe has evolved from simple country selection on a tactical basis to the inclusion of sector allocations, and then to permanent allocations in individual stock-focused portfolios. The same way that the laws of finance are atemporal – thus, the idea that “value is dead” is nothing more than confused thinking – they are also universal. They apply equally to emerging markets as they do to developed economies. The issue is not whether a value discipline will work in the emerging markets, but rather who will self-select to go back to the future in their investment choices.
Paul Espinosa
Portfolio Manager
Seafarer Capital Partners, LLC
The views and information discussed in this commentary are as of the date of publication, are subject to change, and may not reflect Seafarer’s current views. The views expressed represent an assessment of market conditions at a specific point in time, are opinions only and should not be relied upon as investment advice regarding a particular investment or markets in general. Such information does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell specific securities or investment vehicles. The subject matter contained herein has been derived from several sources believed to be reliable and accurate at the time of compilation. Seafarer does not accept any liability for losses either direct or consequential caused by the use of this information.
Past performance does not guarantee future results.
The MSCI USA Growth Gross Total Return USD Index is an index designed to measure the performance of the large and mid-cap segments exhibiting overall growth characteristics of the U.S. equity market. Index code: M2US000G. The MSCI USA Value Gross Total Return Index is an index designed to measure the performance of the large and mid-cap segments exhibiting overall value characteristics of the U.S. equity market. Index code: M2US000V. The MSCI Emerging Markets Total Return USD Index is a free-float adjusted market capitalization index designed to measure equity market performance of emerging markets. Index code: GDUEEGF. The MSCI USA Gross Total Return Index is an index designed to measure the performance of the large and mid-cap segments of the U.S. equity market. Index code: M2US. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index is a free float-adjusted market capitalization index designed to measure equity market performance of emerging markets. Index code: MXEF. It is not possible to invest directly in an index.
Sources: MSCI, Bloomberg, FactSet, Seafarer.
[1] Bloomberg.
[2] Bloomberg.
[3] Bloomberg.
[4] Bloomberg.
[5] “What Has Worked In Investing: Studies of Investment Approaches and Characteristics Associated with Exceptional Returns” (http://www.tweedy.com/resources/library_docs/papers/WhatHasWorkedFundOct14Web.pdf) Tweedy, Browne Company LLC, October 2014.
[6] Bloomberg, FactSet, Seafarer.
[7] Bloomberg, Seafarer.
[8] Bloomberg, FactSet, Seafarer.
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