Why Emerging Markets are Finally Outperforming Developed Markets | Robert Koenigsberger | Gramercy
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Today's episode is brought to you by Peak Day Asset Management and their AI enhanced ETF range, tickers PQNT and PQUS. You'll hear more about how they're using AI to enhance equity exposure later in the show. For now, let's get into it. Hello, and welcome to Other People's Money. Today, I have the privilege of interviewing Robert Koenigsberger, CIO and founder of Gramercy, a multibillion dollar emerging markets alternative investment manager. Robert, thank you so much for joining
the show today. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.
Alright. Well, I will take the liberty of calling you one of the legends of emerging market investing. But for those who are less familiar, can you start by telling us a little bit more about your background and about Gramercy's history and evolution to today?
Sure. Look, I've been investing in emerging markets since before they emerged. I got involved in the mid to late 1980s when really emerging markets was all about the lesser developed country debt crisis. So I had the good fortune of working with a gentleman who had been the head of Wells Fargo International, Finance Minister of Peru. He lent it, he defaulted it, and he was in a really good position to restructure. So late 80s, early 90s, was working on the Brady debt restructurings within this market, and over the past thirty nine years, I've just kind of evolved myself and Gramercy as emergin
What would you say has been the biggest evolution from then to today?
If you go back to the late 1980s, early 90s, it really wasn't a market. It was a bazaar. And when people were looking to quote trade risk, it was really by appointment only. In the early days, it was really just an interdealer market, and a lot of the volatility that you saw in the early to mid-1990s was because Salomon Brothers was selling to Chase and Chase was selling to Chemical, and there wasn't really a dedicated buyer group behind it. The other thing I would say, Max, is in the early days, EM was really the patient going in and out of the emergency room, and I think it was less of a leg
Well, as we sit here in the 2026, strong performance from emerging markets and specifically from emerging market equities has created a narrative that, sort of the outward animosity of the US administration is causing non US investors to to sell their US assets, bring capital home. How true is that from your perspective, and and what do you attribute this recent outperformance to?
Look, I mean, I think that repatriation narrative is part of the story, but I also think there was a fundamental repricing of relative value that occurred. What do I mean by that? I mean, for a long time, emerging markets, whether you're talking about equity or debt, were kind of out of favor. We were saying to people, The FOMO's gone. Unfortunately, a lot of investors kind of think about EM as yesno, and they've done this dance between fear and fear of missing out. I think between 'twenty one and 'twenty five, it was really about fear, and 'twenty five recreated FOMO. That FOMO in part was, s
This bullish attitude has largely been pointed towards equity markets, and I think when a lot of people talk about emerging markets, they're referencing equity, but but you really specialize in emerging market debt. How different is the tone in the debt world, and are you seeing the same excitement that EM equity investors have?
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