SCORECARD EQUITY INVESTOR Loss-making funds can console themselves by buying into the best-managed firms - and stocks benefitting from a US recovery. By Dominic O'Neill The hard way P osting returns from a portfolio of latin american equities over the past year has not been an easy task: indices fell under fears of higher US rates and falling chinese growth. this year's equity investor scorecard, for the 12 months to end march 2014, is more a game of who posted the lowest losses than the highest gains. "it's been a challenging environment," says Will landers, latin america fund manager at Blackrock. "the last quarter helped to finish on a more positive note; but no one is throwing any parties." for long-only investors, the expectation of slower growth in countries like Brazil is another reason to concentrate on bottom-up research. they stress the importance of finding effectively managed firms with strong balance sheets that can survive the vagaries of the business cycle while emerging better able to take advantage of a recovery. Despite fears of a slowdown in consumer demand, for some funds this has been a further reason to stick to domestic-orientated firms. this is partly because they find better management teams in those firms, which they see as less likely to be privatized or semi-privatized state enterprises. But also because they still see less volatile revenues Tough times 2014 equity investor scorecard Annualized Gross Returns (%) USD Assets ($m) Launch Allocated to LatAm (%) 1 yr 3 yr 5 yr 10 yr -20.06 -19.06 4.68 11.39 Benchmark BOVESPA (Ibovespa) CR Lipper Global Equity Emerging Mkts Latin Am -16.13 -9.1 10.4 9.97 Mexico IPC CR -13.19 -0.46 17.37 12.65 -16.3 -11.64 8.02 10.56 17.479 15.979 16.274 MSCI EM Latin America CR USD Manager Fund Aberdeen Global - Latin American Equity A2 Acc USD 1279.84 2010 94.18 -16.227 -3.448 JPMorgan Latin America Equity A Dis USD 1220.73 1992 90.6 -13.007 -4.383 Blackrock BSF Latin American Opportunities A2 USD 121.61 2007 99.75 -14.936 -5.776 Fidelity Latin America A-USD HSBC HSBC GIF Latin American Equity M1D USD Morgan Stanley Latin American Equity A USD 516.75 Baring Latin America A USD Inc 452.41 Schroders ISF Latin American A Acc 373.15 2000 Threadneedle Latin American Ret Net Acc GBX 928.16 1997 94.22 -14.823 Henderson Gartmore Latin American R EUR Acc 226.42 2004 92.02 -15.034 Source: Lipper, data to 31 March 2014 32 l atinfina nce.com - May/June 2014 1392.67 1994 93.12 -15.342 -6.123 15.991 162.71 2006 92.83 -9.494 -6.822 16.907 1997 95.4 -14.494 -6.824 14.532 14.687 1996 95.85 -12.323 -7.197 99.8 -17.678 -7.551 12.584 14.412 -8.136 14.403 14.228 -8.378 13.085http://www.latinfinance.com