Star EM Stock Picker Gets US-Like Returns by Ditching Benchmark

Rob Marshall-Lee is among the few money managers generating US stock market-like returns with investments in emerging-market companies. He does it by avoiding most of them.

The founding partner and chief investment officer of Cusana Capital LLP, Marshall-Lee has provided investors in his EM equity fund with a 37% gain over the past 12 months, beating the S&P 500 and 97% of peers, according to the latest available data as of Sept. 30. He holds only one company among the top 20 with the biggest weightings in the benchmark MSCI emerging-market index, and credits that for the outperformance.