The Goldman Sachs GQG Partners International Opportunities Fund had 0.99% exposure to Russia at the end of February, Goldman Sachs said in a statement posted on its website, with holdings in Lukoil, Rosneft and Gazprom.
The fund is Goldman’s only one with exposure to Russia, according to research firm Morningstar’s data on the world’s top 100 open and exchange-traded funds in terms of estimated US dollar exposure to Russian securities.
“In 2022, we saw growth opportunities and attractive valuations in many Russian companies,” the company said.
“Russian government stocks this year have started to outweigh the positive fundamentals we were seeing in many companies. We have reduced our exposure to Russian holdings since early January, and they are now concentrated in the energy sector.” , she said.
A spokesperson said the fund had $22.45 billion in assets at the end of February, with Russian exposure equivalent to $222.3 million.
That’s down from an exposure of more than $1.7 billion in September, according to Morningstar data.
Western sanctions against Moscow following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last week prompted a wave of investors announcing they were reducing their positions in Russia.
Goldman said it also downgraded the value of its Russian assets after the country’s central bank closed the local market to all foreign investors, complicating plans to dump or price the assets.
“Under these circumstances, Russian securities in the portfolios for which we determine valuations are now valued at fair value in the absence of true market values,” Goldman said.
The fair value determinations “resulted in significant discounts to market values that existed prior to the Central Bank of Russia’s actions,” she added.