UBS has confirmed it has launched a Global Emerging Markets Growth fund but it is not planning to actively market it to private investors.

Soft launched – under the radar since October - it aims to make returns from companies in up-and-coming countries such as India, China, Russia and Brazil and has been a second quartile performer since its launch, achieving 1.47 per cent growth in the past 6 months.

Based on this performance, the OEIC is currently ranked 17th from 48 funds in the Investment Management Association’s (IMA) Global Emerging Markets sector.

The fund is managed by a team which UBS hired from Nicholas Applegate Capital Management in 2007.

The team, based in San Diego, is led by Vincent Willyard, who was previously managing director and portfolio manager at Nicholas Applegate. Willyard reports to Paul Graham, managing director and head of growth strategies at UBS Global.

The day-to-day management of the portfolio will fall to senior equity portfolio manager and executive director Joe Devine. Devine has a mandate for long-term capital growth.

Devine has been a senior portfolio manager on UBS’s Global ex-US growth equities team and has been responsible for managing emerging markets and Pacific Rim growth strategies since joining UBS in July 2007.

Previously, he had responsibility for Emerging Markets and Pacific Rim portfolios at Nicholas-Applegate Capital Management.

Devine has also worked at Duncan-Hurst Capital Management, where he was also responsible for their Global Emerging Markets portfolio. He was educated in the US at Southern California University.

Oliver Gadney, spokesperson for UBS Asset Management, declined to make any official comment on the launch.

However, What Investment.co.uk understands that the fund was launched at the request of one of UBS’s clients and that is why it has not yet been marketed to retail investors.

Darius McDermott, managing director of financial advisory practice Chelsea Financial Services, said UBS would not have launched this fund without a different approach to what is already on the market.

He explained, ‘All I have to look at is the UBS Global Emerging Markets Equity Fund and their track record is reasonable, although it is slightly underperforming at the moment.

'That said, I would tend to go to Aberdeen, Lazard or JP Morgan for emerging markets.’