Meet the Manager: Q&A with Alay Patel

Tell us how you got into asset management

When I finished university in the US in the early 2000s, I started as a chartered accountant at KPMG. From there, I made my move into banking, and I worked on the sell side at investment banks including Morgan Stanley, Jefferies, and Berenberg Bank. Personal circumstances then required me to move to India so I was living and working in an emerging market for almost three years. I joined Barings as an analyst in November 2014, originally for the Barings Frontiers Markets Fund. When that fund closed in 2019, it was a natural transition to provide market coverage for the wider Barings Emerging Equities Team, before becoming co-manager of BEMO this year.

What interests you about investing in emerging markets?

I have a family background in India and was brought up for a time in Zambia where my father was born—so that probably helped to ignite my passion for these young markets at an early age.

I love working in this asset class because it offers a perfect blend of stock analysis and number-crunching but also travelling and meeting companies all over the world. Many of the companies we look at get relatively little coverage from market analysts so there’s lots for us to discover. I’m also fascinated by the trends in these markets: the rise of the middle-class consumer, for example, which is leading to rapid growth in so many areas. Also, how young markets can ‘leapfrog’ technologies. In Kenya, for example, people have gone from having no landline telephones to doing their banking on their smartphones via companies like Safaricom. I’m also inspired by the sense of ambition you encounter—for example in Saudi Arabia, where they’re building stadia for the 2034 World Cup. Last is the sheer diversity of opportunities we are looking at: Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa are all completely different, but fascinating in their own ways.

What do you like about the Barings approach to these markets?

At the heart of Barings is the great people you encounter—like Matthias and Adnan, my co-managers on BEMO. Everyone I’ve worked with is extremely supportive and collegiate in their approach. Barings also believes in giving its people the resources they need to get to know their investments really well. I’ve been able to travel to Nigeria, Kenya, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to meet companies—and right now I’m about to go off to Johannesburg.

Are you a strong believer in meeting companies face to face?

Absolutely. I learn a lot speaking directly to people from the countries we’re investing in. Being able to walk around and get a feel for a place, whether it’s a gold mine in South Africa or a bank in Qatar, adds a lot of value. It’s also important to get a gut feel about a company’s management when you meet them. How credible are they? Do they seem likely to serve the needs of minority shareholders? That said, you don’t always learn the most from the CEO of a company—sometimes talking to the reception person behind the front desk can tell you a lot more!

How do you, Matthias and Adnan share portfolio management responsibilities between you?

We each have our own areas of coverage. So Matthias is the specialist for Eastern European, Greek and Turkish financials, along with Eastern Europe in general. That’s quite fitting as he comes from Austria and knows the history of Eastern Europe inside out. Adnan has a deep background in the Middle East and Africa as do I. But we all have our own special niche areas within the three main regions covered by the trust. We’ve worked together for 11 years now so we all appreciate and understand each other's expertise in whatever area we focus on, and adopt the same robust and disciplined approach to assessing and comparing companies.

Do you see it as your role to challenge each other? Do you ever disagree on whether to put a stock in the portfolio?

Absolutely, that happens often. A herd mentality would not be a good thing, so challenging each other is done in a very professional, collegiate way. That’s not necessarily to avoid putting a company into the portfolio but to ask ‘Have we thought about this?’ ‘Should we stress-test the model here or there?’, ‘Is there anything we’ve missed?’ This happens constantly and it's key to getting the best ideas in the portfolio.

In BEMO, there are plenty of areas that may be quite new to investors. Are there any opportunities that you think may surprise people?

Yes—I’m sure there are places we look at for BEMO that may surprise investors as investable opportunities. For example, right now we are starting to look at Morocco, which is co-hosting the World Cup in 2030. Factors such as its auto industry, its strong resource base and a currency that’s pegged to the Euro and the US dollar are making Morocco increasingly interesting to us—and it’s likely a market that few investors will have considered.

Something else that may also surprise investors is the level of initial public offering (IPO) activity in Emerging EMEA markets. For example, Saudia Arabia recently saw the IPO of fitness firm Sports Clubs Company, which saw its shares rise 24% on its market debut¹—and the fitness sector is probably not an industry that people associate with Saudia Arabia. Indeed, the extent to which Middle Eastern markets like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are investing in artificial intelligence (AI), digitisation, and leisure and tourism is a long way from the ‘sand and oil’ economies many people tend to associate with the region.

It's interesting that you talk about the buoyancy of the IPO sector in these markets, given that IPO activity has slowed so much in the West. What’s driving that?

There are a number of factors. In a bid to diversify economies away from oil and gas, policymakers in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, have worked hard to grow their capital markets and modernise regulatory frameworks to make IPOs more attractive to investors and that’s really bearing fruit.

Governments are selling stakes in state-owned companies, such as Dubai privatising its electricity and water authority. The successful listing of these state-owned businesses is, in turn, encourage more private companies to come to market.

Another interesting driver is succession planning. In the Middle East, business owners are finding it’s now easier simply to list the family business and give equal shares to each family member. So there’s a lot happening to support the IPO market, particularly in the Gulf region, and we see that trend continuing.

You talk about the sense of entrepreneurism in these markets—can you give some examples of enterprises you’ve encountered?

I just met a company called Derayah Financial Co., an online brokerage app created by a young Saudi who left one of the largest banks in Saudi Arabia to set it up. That business had its IPO in March this year, raising $400 million². We’re also seeing lots of entrepreneurial activity among online services, especially food delivery apps like Jahez in Saudi Arabia or Talabat in Dubai, which raised $2 billion in 2024 in the UAE’s largest IPOs of the year³.

The regions that BEMO invests in are navigating huge geopolitical challenges such as wars in Gaza and Ukraine. How do you find companies that can transcend these events?

It's an excellent question, and something I think about all the time. Our solution is to find companies with really defensive attributes. For example, is a company a pure tourism play, or does it have a domestic consumption element too? A good example would be Salik, a toll road operator in UAE, which doesn't have much capital expenditure or operating costs, but continues to draw in revenue whatever the economic outlook. Likewise, a number of telecoms companies are benefiting from growing demand for data and social media, regardless of what happens geopolitically. For example, Etihad Etisalat is Saudi Arabian telecom that’s recording very strong growth not only from the local population but from religious tourists needing to use their phones abroad.

What excites you about getting to co-manage BEMO?

Alongside the people I get to work with, I am excited about engaging with all the stakeholders that are involved in the company, whether that’s the Board, the marketing teams or investors themselves. The challenge is balancing all those responsibilities with the core work of finding the right companies to hold in the portfolio, but I’m really looking forward to it.

1. Source: Bloomberg 22.07.25, External Reference 23.07.25
2. Source: Bloomberg 10.03.25, External Reference 10.03.25 
3. Source: Financial Times 29.11.24, External Reference 29.11.24 

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