BlackRock Frontiers Investment Trust (BRFI) offers a unique proposition for emerging markets investors, avoiding the largest markets – which between them account for the vast majority of global EM investment – in favour of less researched and often faster-growing countries at an earlier stage of development. Co-managers Sam Vecht and Emily Fletcher, backed by BlackRock's deep and broad research resources, blend top-down and bottom-up considerations to find investment opportunities in smaller emerging and frontier markets worldwide, resulting in a highly differentiated global portfolio that has delivered attractive returns to investors over both the short and longer term, backed up by compelling valuations and a higher-than-average dividend yield (currently 4.4%). While the word ‘frontier' may conjure a hint of wildness and danger, these markets (as represented in BRFI's benchmark) have consistently – if perhaps surprisingly – exhibited lower volatility of 10-year returns than US, UK and broader EM indices.
