Kuroto Fund, L.P. - Q3 2017 Letter
Dear Partners and Friends,
PERFORMANCE & PORTFOLIO
In the third quarter of 2017, Kuroto increased +2.0% while the MSCI Emerging Markets Index rose +8.0%. For the year to date through October 31, Kuroto was up +17.7% and the MSCI EM Index was up +32.5%.[1]
During the third quarter, we exited our investments in Moscow Exchange, an Argentinean holding company, a Vietnamese industrial, and a Peruvian financial. We made new investments in an Egyptian construction company, a South African services company, and a Chinese e-commerce company. More recently, we sold 40% of our position in Ferreycorp; it remains a sizeable position.
What’s an emerging market?
The MSCI emerging market index consists of over 800 companies domiciled in over 25 countries that contain over half of the world’s population. By design, this benchmark includes countries as diverse as India and Chile. The dissimilarities of such a diverse universe often outweigh the similarities. Accordingly, accurately describing emerging markets in generalities is a struggle, if not an arbitrary pursuit.
As company-specific investors, however, we do not focus on market generalities but instead comb through the universe of developing markets to find exceptional companies. Our strategy has tended to result in the ownership of relatively few companies that crossover with the MSCI emerging market index. This is one reason why we’ve been able to outperform the index by almost three fold over the last 19 years. To put some numbers around the overlap, today only 4 out of our 25 companies crossover with the 800+ companies in the index, resulting in just a 1% overlap with the index. This has been typical of our active share over time.
The obvious reason for our high active share is stock selection. We are principally invested in the same countries as the index but simply own different companies. Another important part of our portfolio’s differentiation comes from our willingness to invest in developing markets which aren’t categorized by MSCI as an emerging market.
MSCI considers a variety of factors in determining whether or not a country qualifies as an emerging market. Amongst the primary factors are overall economic development, market size, market liquidity, and market accessibility. These criteria, while sensible, are all backward looking. As a result, MSCI tends to downgrade countries after a market deterioration has occurred. For example, MSCI categorized Egypt as an emerging market from the Arab Spring in January 2011 until November of 2016. During the intervening five and a half years, the Egyptian pound depreciated 50% and Egypt deposed and imprisoned two presidents. In MSCI’s defense, they need a system, and no system is perfect. But, their rules-based approach creates opportunities for long-term investors like us.
By way of a forward-looking example, let’s examine MSCI’s decision to categorize Turkey as an emerging market and Vietnam as a frontier market, and our decision to invest in Vietnam but not Turkey. To begin with, there are defensible reasons for the MSCI categorization. The Turkish stock market has a larger market cap, a larger float, and more daily liquidity. Moreover, trade execution for foreigners is far easier in Turkey. It takes only a week or two to set up a trading account in Turkey, while in Vietnam this can easily take a month. Furthermore, in Vietnam, foreigners must prefund a trade with Vietnamese dong, thereby creating currency risk prior to any trade. Vietnam has also left market participants with no direct way to hedge their currency exposure. Finally, foreign investors have historically not been allowed to own more than 49% of any listed company in Vietnam.
On most fundamental macroeconomic measures, Vietnam presents a more attractive investment backdrop than Turkey. To be clear, each country has its issues. Vietnam, for instance, has had two bouts of very high inflation in the last decade, but they’ve been diligent over the past six years in managing it. Turkey, on the other hand, has had persistently high, single-digit rates of inflation for most of this century, with no clear effort to bring it down. Moreover, Turkey’s persistent, sizeable current account deficit makes it perennially dependent on foreign capital flow in a way that Vietnam is not.
Politics are another important factor in our preference for Vietnam. True, the communist party of Vietnam doesn’t bother with the pretense of open elections, but the situation in Turkey is worse. While Turkey holds elections, since the coup in 2016, President Erdogan has led a concerted effort to imprison any political opponent (or anyone else deemed a terrorist). Even business executives in Turkey with whom we’ve spoken are well aware of the fact that they are under surveillance. The Turkish government has even gone so far as to nationalize some private companies whose owners were considered terrorists (read dissidents).
Conclusion
On occasion, we’ve been asked by prospective clients why we don’t manage large amounts of capital with better liquidity terms at lower fees. We explain that doing so would effectively force us into just owning the index, at which point our fund would lose what differentiates it. With modest amounts of capital and superior liquidity terms, we are confident that we can create a unique portfolio that will beat the market in the long run.
Sincerely,
Sean Fieler
Daniel Gittes
END NOTES
[1] Performance stated for Kuroto Fund, L.P. Class A on a net basis. An investor’s performance may differ based on timing of contributions, withdrawals, share class, and participation in new issues. Unless otherwise noted, all company-specific data derived from internal analysis, company presentations, or Bloomberg. Company valuations and exposures expressed as of 10.31.17.












