End of the line for unloved BRIC funds?

Last week's news that BRIC pioneer Goldman Sachs had been forced to merge its fund into a wider emerging markets offering seemed to sound the death knell for what were once hugely popular vehicles less than a decade ago.

Goldman Sachs AM said assets had fallen from $842m at the fund's peak in 2010 to less than $100m and it was unlikely to see any "significant asset growth in the foreseeable future". Its move was particularly notable as it was former Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O'Neill who coined the acronym 'BRIC'- Brazil, Russia, India and China -  in 2001. At that time, he believed the countries would be the engines of future global growth. The initial appeal of the BRIC concept was Brazil and Russia were large commodity producers, while China and India were huge commodity consumers. Whi...