OREANDA-NEWS. February 28 2011. Standard & Poor's has awarded an ‘A’ fund rating to the recently-launched Renaissance Emerging Europe Equity Fund run by Plamen Monovski and Karol Chrystowski. This fund is the flagship fund of the new UCITS III Luxembourg platform from Renaissance Asset Managers.

The Renaissance Emerging Europe Equity Fund has already raised close to USD 20mn and is well placed to become a reference fund for professional investors in Emerging Europe.

The rating is an endorsement of the rigorous investment process that the team created and employed over their careers. It is rare for Standard & Poor's to rate a fund so soon after launch, but in the three months since the fund’s creation in November 2010, the fund has already outperformed its benchmark, the MSCI Emerging Europe 10/40 Index, by 2%.

The news comes one year after Mr Monovski left BlackRock and Adrian Harris, Head of Distribution and Investor Relations, left Schroders to take up the helm at Renaissance Asset Managers,- the USD 2.2bn asset manager and sister company of emerging markets powerhouse, Renaissance Group.

Mr Monovski said, "We are delighted to have been awarded this A rating from Standard & Poor's. We believe that at Renaissance Asset Managers we are uniquely positioned to invest in this region, because we have access to the fantastic idea generation of 20 on-the-ground investment professionals in Russia."

Mr Harris added, "The Standard and Poor's rating brings external validation to something we have believed since building the team at Renaissance - that we have one of the best teams in Eastern Europe. We are delighted that the Luxembourg platform is off to such a strong start and continue to build out our franchise to become known as the leading specialist asset manager in Emerging Europe, Russia/CIS and Africa."