AXA Framlington, the specialist equity fund manager within the AXA Investment Managers group, has made two hires to its emerging markets equities team, reports Citywire.

Amanda O’Toole and Paul Birchenough, both latterly at Nevsky Capital, join a team led by Julian Thompson as analysts and portfolio managers. Both have also worked at KPMG for several years.

At AXA Framlington O’Toole will focus on the media, telecoms, consumer in emerging markets excluding Asia and utilities and energy sectors in Asia, while Birchenough will cover industrials and materials across the region, says the report.

“We are structuring the team by sector, splitting it between Asia and emerging markets ex-Asia, with some overlap between the two. We aim to develop sector expertise rather than region specific, because our edge is being able to value a company appropriately, rather than where it is based,” Thompson is reported as saying.

The firm did not respond to enquiries made by WealthBriefing by the time the publication went to press.