The funds were previously run by Michael Konstantinov, who left the group earlier this month. Cheng will join on 1 October. He left Frankfurt-based Union Investment at the end of June.
The departure of Konstantinov led to management of the funds moving from the UK team to Allianz GI’s San Diego-based emerging markets team. Cheng will form part of this team.
Konstantinov left the group to ‘pursue other opportunities’, but has not yet emerged at a new fund management group.
The Allianz BRIC Stars fund had suffered relative to its peers as growth in the Brazilian, Russian, Indian and Chinese economies proved weaker than expected. The fund is currently fourth quartile in the IMA Specialist sector over three years, having fallen 19%, against a rise in the average fund in the sector of 2.9%.
The £337m fund was once close to £1bn in size, but has seen assets dwindle as both fund performance and the BRIC concept has waned. It is currently almost 30% invested in financials with Russian Sperbank its largest holding. The fund is relatively evenly split between the four countries with between 20% and 25% in each.
MSCI recently launched the EM Beyond BRIC Index in recognition that many investors now wanted to invest in countries outside the BRIC region.