Troika Dialog Asset Management announced last Friday the creation of Troika Dialog-Global Internet, a new open ended equity fund that will invest exclusively in Internet related businesses, both in Russia and abroad.
The fund aims at achieving mid term capital appreciation of Internet portals, providers of technologies for Internet infrastructure, smartphone and smartphone software developers in particular. Among the most promising new trends and technologies, Troika Dialog has singled out cloud technologies and location based services “at the level of city micro-districts.”
Local Russian companies Yandex and Mail.ru Group, which successfully began trading on Western stock exchanges recently, are also under consideration for inclusion in the fund, said Troika Dialog Asset Management Portfolio Manager Yury Karavan in an exchange with The Moscow Times.
While recognizing that “a degree of excessive enthusiasm may have been observed surrounding recent IPOs in the Internet sector,” the bank believes that “on the whole, fundamental valuations of firms in this sector appear quite realistic given widely held expectations for strong sector growth.”
“Unlike the ‘Internet bubble’ at the beginning of the 2000s, the sector has reached a more advanced and mature stage of development,” argues Karavan.
“With further perfection and implementation of new technologies, the sector’s actual growth trends may prove considerably higher than currently expected,” the bank said optimistically.
The fund’s investment instruments include shares in individual issuers as well as shares in equity trading funds (ETF), according to the news release. As a retail fund, Troika Dialog-Global Internet will accept orders to purchase exchange and redeem investment shares every workday. The minimum sum for first time share purchases has been set at 30,000 rubles, or approximately $1,000.
Troika Dialog counts among the oldest and largest Russian banks with offices in London, New York, Almaty and Kiev in addition to many Russian cities. Founded in 1996, Troika Dialog Asset Management is the largest operator on Russia’s asset management market.
