If you work in asset management, emerging markets funds are the place to be

Working in asset management is becoming a more insecure place to be; tumbling equity prices have panicked investors, ensuring that assets under management are heading southwards. While big redundancy announcements have been rare, there's now little in the way of front office recruitment taking place.

The exception, however, is in the global and emerging markets product space.

Last week alone, emerging market equity funds attracted $3.5bn in new assets - their biggest inflow since early April, according to data provider EPFR Global.

Research by headhunters Sheffield Howarth also suggests that it's still a relatively buoyant area of recruitment, on both the fixed income and equity side of the business.

"We have seen significant movement of both individual portfolio managers and teams in the global and emerging markets product space," says Patrick Morrissey, group managing director at Sheffield Howarth. "Opportunities continue to grow in these investment categories in both large organisations and boutiques."

This morning, for example, Pioneer Investments announced two new hires for its emerging markets division, and has plans to grow the team from 30 people to 40. First State Investments also recently made a trio of appointments for its emerging markets debt team, Pimco completed the build out of its emerging markets equity team with five new hires last month and Baring Asset Management announced various new recruits for its international equities teams during October.

Part of the reason for the large number of new hires is increased competition for the best people in the emerging markets product area, which is prompting movement, suggest headhunters, but Sheffield Howarth says it's also down to more investment firms launching new dedicated emerging market multi-asset funds.

There has generally been a proliferation of these multi-asset funds recently anyway - in volatile markets it helps to have a diversify your portfolio - and it also means investors are less likely to take flight. Fund managers have also been focusing on this on the recruitment front, says Martin Lorigan, head of asset management at Principal Search.

"Emerging markets and global equities is where there seems to be more movement," he says. "However, from our perspective we see current and anticipated business coming from the growth of investment solutions and multi-asset teams as our clients look to lock-in clients by taking on a broader asset allocation or fiduciary role"