Global Thematic Partners, an equity investment boutique with strategies focused on global investment themes and agribusiness, has set up shop in New York with $9 billion for 35 mostly institutional investors around the world, confirmed CEO Oliver Kratz, who also serves as a portfolio manager at the firm.
Mr. Kratz's 19-member team is one of two from Deustche Asset Management that DeAM said in January it would help set up as independent boutiques — part of a broader strategy by the parent to focus on what it termed its core investment strengths of institutional global fixed income and liquidity management.
Mr. Kratz said GTP's team of 10 analysts is currently focused on 13 investment themes, with on average one new “thematic cluster” researched and introduced every year.
The latest theme is “sufficiency,” which posits that the time-honored response of “growing yourself out of every problem” will face growing resistance in a world where economic “externalities” can no longer be ignored, he said. Resulting investment ideas could focus on companies that conclude that “bigger is not always better,” finding ways to profit by making products that last a long time, he said.
Mr. Kratz serves as portfolio manager for the firm's thematic strategy. Ralf Oberbannscheidt, a managing director at the firm, serves as portfolio manager for the agribusiness strategy, which currently has roughly $3 billion in assets.
