Axiom Investors’ Update on Russia & Ukraine
Axiom has been closely monitoring developments in Russia and Ukraine. As of March 1st, 2022, all Russia exposure across Axiom’s Strategies had been sold to 0%.
Firmwide, our exposure to Russia was 2.1% as of 12/31/2021 and had been reduced to 0.4% as of the day Russia invaded Ukraine. We avoided exposure in our International, Global, and Small Cap strategies given the geopolitical uncertainty, and had only limited exposure in our dedicated Emerging Markets Equity strategies.
Regarding our dedicated Emerging Markets Equity strategies, the Axiom Emerging Markets Equity Strategy and the Axiom Emerging Markets World Equity Strategy, Axiom Investors began selling down our Russian exposure in 4Q2021, ending the year with a less than 4% allocation in each Strategy. As tensions increased throughout January and February, we continued to reduce our exposure to Russia/Ukraine in our dedicated Emerging Markets strategies. By February 24th, 2022, the day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, our exposure had been reduced to under 1% and by March 1st, 2022, all securities in Russia were sold to zero in both of Axiom’s Emerging Markets strategies.
Currently, Axiom has a firm-wide restriction in place for any security whose domicile, listing or place of incorporation is Russia or Belarus, and no strategy will be purchasing any such securities for the foreseeable future.
As an active, dynamic growth investment manager, we remain focused on investing ahead of the curve using our three philosophical pillars as our guide: positive change, sustainability of growth, and valuation. It is our expectation that geopolitical and macroeconomic concerns will continue to drive stock price volatility as the crisis unfolds. Adhering to our fundamental investment process has allowed us to uncover dynamic growth businesses and helped us navigate short-term market volatility while remaining focused on longer-term opportunities on behalf of our investors for over 25 years.
This situation continues to be fluid, and we are actively monitoring and evaluating all developments. Should there be any material changes or developments in how Axiom is navigating the situation in Russia/Ukraine, we will notify our clients individually and/or through our website.
If there is any additional information we can provide or questions we can answer, please reach out to a member of Axiom’s Client Partnership team below.
Lindsay Chamberlain, Managing Director of Client Partnerships
Steve Hanson, Director of Client Partnerships
Greg Schneider, Director of Client Partnerships
Megan Strater, Director of Client Partnerships