Alternatives managers are seeing opportunities to invest overseas in India, Brazil and Europe amid ongoing uncertainty surrounding tariff policy in the U.S.
The current moment is “a really good reminder that rest of the world, not just the United States, is a great place to invest,” said Anthony Yoseloff, managing partner at $35 billion Davidson Kempner, speaking during a panel on May 6 at the Milken Institute 2025 Global Conference, held in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Over half of Davidson Kempner’s investments are overseas and Yoseloff said he’s a big believer in needing local staff who speak the language and have relationships. He pointed to specifically to credit investing in India as an active area for his firm.
“I think that's going to continue to accelerate,” he said, adding that changes in bankruptcy laws in India have allowed for better rules for creditors to repossess collateral.
Robyn Grew, CEO of $172.6 billion Man Group, pointed to growth opportunities appearing in Europe as well as more opportunities in Asia.
“Volatility is going to be part and parcel of our lives,” she said.
But Grew also noted that the U.S. has “the deepest, richest, best capital market in the world, and that isn't going to change overnight.”
Grew also pointed to opportunities in public and private credit with dry powder waiting in the wings for deployment into stressed and distressed credit opportunities as well as more interest in portable alpha.
Mubadala Capital’s Oscar Fahlgren, CIO and global head of private equity, pointed to special situations and bankruptcy investing in Brazil as presenting attractive opportunities.
“If you know what you're doing, and you have a good local presence, and you really invest time and effort, it presents a tremendous opportunity set,” he said, adding that “indirectly and sort of ironically, what is happening today is that with the U.S. becoming increasingly unstable or volatile, the emerging markets will become more attractive.”
Edwin Jager, executive committee member at the D. E. Shaw Group, which had more than $65 billion in assets under management as of March 1, said the longer there is uncertainty around tariffs, the higher the probability of slipping into a recession.
“Within alts there is a tremendous amount of opportunity to play that dispersion when it comes,” he said.
Jager pointed to multistrategy hedge funds in this uncertain moment.
“I'm going to talk my own book for a second, but it is the multistrategy hedge fund that can really dynamically allocate capital to whatever opportunities are going to arise in the uncertainty and volatility,” he said.
In the U.S., money has poured into private credit, especially corporate direct lending, and Davidson Kempner’s Yoseloff said he sees opportunities with a subset of companies that can't pay their debt.
“We just bought out an entire capital structure of a company where we’re going to be able operate the business, and it’s a business we know well. ... I think there are going to be a ton of opportunities like that,” he said.
And panelists are still looking for opportunities in the U.S.
“I’m not giving up on the U.S. ... but it is also helpful to do things that other people don’t do,” Yoseloff said.
