Nordic-based investors, recognising the long-standing investment challenges facing institutions, are again exhibiting their receptiveness to investment solutions that lie outside the historical comfort zones of their local investment universe. Recent years have seen Nordic-based investors allocate meaningfully to global real estate and private equity assets, and today, other alternative asset classes have also come into sharper focus. With interest rates in many European countries – including Denmark and Sweden – seemingly anchored in negative territory, investors in the Nordic region are continuing to show greater interest in alternative credit.

Against this backdrop, Eaton Vance Management (International) Ltd. (EVMI) has partnered with consulting firm Kirstein A/S to publish a series of reports for Nordic-based investors that look into the dynamics of investing in alternative credit.

Eaton Vance Management (EVM) is a long-standing investor in a wide range of income-generating asset classes, both traditional and nontraditional. Kirstein A/S, since 2005, has been gathering invaluable views and data points on investor behaviour in the Nordic region. Our combined efforts will, we hope, provide you with insights about the challenges and opportunities in this space.

In this, the third of  combined report (following on from high yield and leveraged loans papers), the focus is on emerging-market debt. The first part of this paper explores investor preferences and perceptions on emerging-market debt in the Nordic region, informed by the insights of Kirstein’s market intelligence unit. The second part of the paper, written by EVMI, seeks to lay out the case for a strategic approach to this asset class that goes beyond top-down, index based investing and affords the investment manager the flexibility to allocate freely across the full opportunity set.

The White Paper can be read here: Emerging-market debt investing: A Nordic perspective

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