What's in a name?

CIVETS

As HSBC prepares to launch the first ever CIVETS fund, Maria Merricks asks if this newest acronym is a realistic investment strategy or just clever marketing.

Since Goldman Sachs first coined the BRIC acronym ten years ago, the strategy has been adopted by a variety of fund managers with many generating solid returns for investors. Following the success of BRIC, a number of similar concepts have cropped up. In the past few years, the industry has been introduced to the likes of BRICK (including Korea), BRIMC (including Mexico) and, most recently, the Next 11 and CIVETS. Regarding the latter, which comprises the economies of Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa, commentators agree each of the individual countries with...