Eve Maddock-Jones, Investment Week, 30 January 2023:
The full impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the consequential market blacklist has been unveiled for the JP Morgan Emerging Europe, Middle East & Africa Securities (JEMA) fund in its final results.
Formerly JP Morgan Russian Securities, the portfolio’s share price had fallen by 90.5% on a total return basis in the 12-month period to 31st October 2022, and its total return was down 94.9% for the period.
Since then, the net asset value has remained relatively unchanged, and sat at 46.6p per share as of 23 January.
Analysts at QuotedData said these “car crash” results should not be surprising, given that the overwhelmingly majority of JEMA’s investments had to be written down to zero as Western sanctions prohibited the trading of Russian assets.
JP Morgan Russian Securities’ shareholders vote ‘yes’ on mandate changes
There was a “significant change” in the number of active owners of the trust as institutional holdings have fallen from approximately 70% to 18% during the period.
According to the company, this was due to some institutions withdrawing from Russia-focused investments following the invasion, a widespread trend across the industry.
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