Aikya Investment Management is an independent, employee-owned, investment management company that specialises in managing Emerging Markets equity portfolios.

A long-term approach like ours requires similarly aligned long-term clients, as well as a business structure that supports and nurtures a culture of long-term investment decision making.

We intend to maintain a small and simple organisational structure in order to avoid the bureaucracy and distractions that often arise in larger more complex investment management businesses.

Our partner, Pinnacle, has a long history incubating and supporting boutique investment businesses, with its affiliates collectively managing $40bn of assets. Aikya has been established in a way that will allow the investment professionals to concentrate entirely on investing, with Pinnacle providing supporting services.

This focus on investment performance and tight capacity control should help maximise investment long-term returns for our clients.

We treat client money as our own and aim to generate healthy long-term returns with minimal downside. Risk for us is the possibility of permanent loss of capital rather than underperforming a benchmark in the short-term. This absolute return mindset allows us to focus on the highest quality companies, without wasting time on thousands of companies in the Emerging Markets universe.

Aikya’s edge is our long-term approach. We look at the financials of a business and analyse franchise strength in detail, but we are primarily focused on assessing the quality of the business owners and managers whom we choose to invest alongside. We look for long-term stewards who have grown cash flows, navigated a few economic cycles, and demonstrated fairness to all stakeholders. The stewards we back have the qualities to identify sustainable growth opportunities and on occasion turnaround underperforming assets. Such people create shareholder value and drive long-term investment returns.

Sustainability is at the heart of our investment approach. The name Aikya means oneness in Sanskrit which reflects our core belief that true stewards align their businesses with the interests of all stakeholders. Companies that take short cuts when it comes to customers, employees, suppliers, the environment, or broader society are unlikely to be rewarding long-term investments.

Our long holding periods build a sense of partnership with investee companies, who, over time, become increasingly open to engagement. Our relationships allow us to discuss critical sustainability issues with top management; positive engagement on such issues becomes a powerful tool for enhancing the value of our client portfolios.

Aikya is a signatory to the United Nations initiated Principles for Responsible Investment (www.unpri.org), which promotes the inclusion of ESG issues into investment processes.

The Aikya Investment Management team shares a common heritage and has decades of collective experience investing in Emerging Markets. We all passionately believe in both the investment philosophy and the asset class.

Our culture is collegiate and encourages active debate. Everyone in the team is an analyst, and we are all incentivised to think like long-term owners.