Former Mobius duo Greg Konieczny and Kunal Desai have resurfaced at a sustainable boutique asset manager to develop its emerging markets team and strategy.
Konieczny (pictured left, above) has joined GIB Asset Management as head of global emerging markets while Desai (right, above) has become a portfolio manager for global emerging market equities.
GIB AM is a sustainable asset manager established in 1975 with offices in London and New York, managing about $11bn of global assets.
Konieczny was a founding partner at Mark Mobius’s investment boutique, Mobius Capital Partners, where he was responsible for the investment strategy focused on investing in sustainable emerging market companies.
In June last year, it was announced in a trading update for the £103.6m Mobius Investment Trust hat Konieczny was retiring from his role.
Before Mobius, Konieczny spent more than 20 years at Franklin Templeton where he was director of specialty strategies in the emerging markets group and led the emerging markets active ownership group and private equity strategy.
Desai joined Mobius Capital Partners in May 2018 and had co-responsibility for its emerging markets investment process. Before that, he was head of Indian equities and lead manager of the Neptune India fund, as well as a portfolio manager on Neptune’s Global Emerging Markets fund.
GIB Asset Management head of equities Neil Brown said Konieczny and Desai’s “philosophy, process and passion are an excellent fit for the business we are building at GIB AM”.
“They bring a wealth of experience and expertise, particularly in working with companies across emerging markets to drive meaningful change,” he added. “I look forward to the success they can bring to our clients, our business and our investee companies in the years ahead.”
Konieczny said: “Kunal and I are thrilled to be joining GIB AM to spearhead the emerging markets strategy and reinforce the firm’s commitment of delivering differentiated, sustainability focused, alpha generating strategies.
“GIB AM share the principles central to our investment philosophy of seeking to engage actively with portfolio companies, to drive long term value creation through material ESG improvements and a pathway to higher incremental returns.”
See also: Mobius partner boomerangs back to Somerset for frontier markets fund
