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Global Emerging Markets (ex China) Leaders
The strategy launched in 2024 and seeks to invests in between 25-45 high-quality emerging markets companies with a total stock market value of at least US$1 billion, but excluding China.
The Global Emerging Markets (ex China) Leaders strategy seeks to invest in 25-45 high-quality companies with exceptional cultures, strong franchises, and resilient financials outside of mainland China. It aims to achieve attractive long-term capital growth and contribute to a more sustainable future across global emerging markets.
It was launched in July 2024, reflecting investor appetite for global emerging market specialist funds without allocations to China, as well as pockets of concern over perceived investment risk and volatility in China.
Leaders simply means that the strategy is focused on companies with a market cap value of at least USD1 billion at the time of investment.
Strategy highlights: a focus on quality and sustainability
- Companies must contribute to sustainable development.
- We invest in high-quality companies with exceptional cultures, strong franchises and resilient financials. How we pick companies >
- We avoid companies linked to harmful activities and engage and vote for positive change. Our position on harmful products >
- Our approach is long-term, bottom-up, high conviction and benchmark agnostic
- We focus on capital preservation as well as capital growth – we define risk as the permanent loss of client capital
Strategy name change
Please note, from 21 November 2024 Stewart Investors Global Emerging Markets (ex China) Leaders Sustainability name will be updated to Global Emerging Markets (ex China) Leaders. By 30 June 2025, the Stewart Investors Australian Unit Trust Fund names will be updated to reflect these Strategy name changes. Please refer to this note for further information.
Latest insights
Quarterly updates
Strategy update: Q1 2025
Global Emerging Markets (ex China) Leaders strategy update: 1 January - 31 March 2025
With the threat of US tariffs ever present, the volatility seen across emerging markets in the final quarter of 2024 carried over into 2025. Share prices in India fell sharply due to concerns about a cyclical slowdown. This reset in valuations means the competition between new ideas for a place in the portfolio has rarely been this intense. The result was a busier-than-normal quarter in which we added six new names to the portfolio.
In India, we allocated capital to some new ideas which have been on our focus list for a while but whose valuations meant we were unable to act until now. Info Edge (India: Communication Services) is a technology company whose online jobs portal caters to 132,000 corporate customers and hosts around 100 million CVs1. It also has property, matchmaking and educational portals. Tube Investments (India: Consumer Discretionary) is an industrial conglomerate whose share price had fallen sharply, providing us with what we believe is an excellent entry point. Bajaj Auto (India: Consumer Discretionary) had also sold off allowing us to add this leading manufacturer of motorcycles, scooters and auto rickshaws, which is backed by a high-quality steward. Bajaj Holdings & Investment (India: Financials) is the holding company of siblings Rajiv and Sanjiv Bajaj. They have demonstrated an exemplary track record of delivering returns for shareholders in autos and financial services.
Elsewhere, we built positions in Samsung Biologics (South Korea: Health Care), Alfamart (Indonesia: Consumer Staples), and BDO Unibank (Philippines: Financials). We believe Samsung Biologics can use the strength of its parent company’s balance sheet to add capacity more quickly than its competitors and win market share. Alfamart is the second biggest player in Indonesia’s convenience-store sector2. It plans to roll out new stores across the country over the next decade. Its shares sold off as the market took fright at Indonesia’s new government but we can see a clear and dependable growth path before it. Finally, BDO Unibank is the Philippines’ largest lender3. It is backed the Sy family, who we believe are great long-term stewards.
We made one complete sell during the quarter, Dino Polska (Poland: Consumer Staples), which had performed well but had become too expensive given its long-term growth prospects.