Manfred Zourek

Erste AM combines comprehensive country specific knowledge with the strength of an international financial service provider. The main approaches at the firm are: Bottom-Up–qualitative, where the selection of individual securities is the central focus and the portfolio composition is influenced by stock selection; Top-Down, where economic analysis influences the composition of the portfolio at country or sector level; Fundamental-quantitative, where the different asset classes are analyzed for portfolio creation, on the basis of fundamental constants within the historical nexus; and Technical Models which serve to determine short, medium or long-term trending. The output of these models leads to buy and sell signals.

RINGTURM actively manages portfolios, a large portion of which is invested in global equity and fixed-income. They are a conservative, risk-averse manager; however, they use derivative instruments to hedge portfolios. The firm is a value-oriented investment manager and utilizes a top-down, macro-economic, fundamental research approach, which seeks to identify both short-term cyclical changes and long-term structural changes in order to determine asset allocation.

Erste-Invest's core competencies are Eurozone investment-grade bonds, Central and Eastern European equity and fixed-income, emerging markets equity and fixed-income, sector funds, asset allocation portfolios, total return portfolios and socially responsible investing. The majority of their investments is in bonds and money market instruments. They also invest in alternative asset classes and manage funds of funds. The firm's investment process emphasizes a top-down approach, combined with a bottom-up component in the case of Austrian and Eastern European equity. Investment decisions are team-based.