Asset Management Tips

Baring Asset Management Inc.'s Nudgem Richyal and Christopher Lees, whose international fund doubled the return of its benchmark last year with the help of Chinese stocks, moved into Russia just as the market stumbled.

The managers unloaded PetroChina Co. Ltd., the world's biggest company by market value, and Guangzhou R&F Properties Co. Ltd. in December after Chinese stocks became the most expensive in Asia.

They bought the fund's first Russian stock, OAO Sberbank, the country's largest lender. The shares have dropped 18 percent this year, though Richyal said he was investing for the long term.

"I'm warming up to Russia this year," Richyal said in a Feb. 6 interview in Boston, where Baring has an office. "We're in the infancy of a resource and consumption boom in emerging economies."

From Baring's London office, Richyal and Lees manage $2.5 billion in non-U.S. read more