Gramercy Funds CIO on emerging markets investing amid the Russia war, including Ukrainian bonds

cnbc.com:

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Emerging markets, specifically those in Eastern Europe, have been whipsawed amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. With sanctions in place and Russia's hard default deadline approaching in April, investors are particularly focused on the region's sovereign debt — an area that Gramercy Funds has specialized in since its inception in 1998. 

Robert Koenigsberger is CIO of the $5.5 billion investment firm. He sat down with CNBC's Delivering Alpha newsletter to discuss his investment in Ukrainian bonds and why a 2022 Russian default would be very different from the country's financial crisis in 1998.

 (The below has been edited for length and clarity. See above for full video.)

Leslie Picker: You've been buying Ukrainian bonds. How much do you own at this point? And can you explain your thinking behind this investment?

Robert Koenigsberger: Fortunately, we owned no Russia or no Ukraine, coming into the invasion on the 24th, and quite frankly, the analytics were simple. We thought that unfortunately, the probability of an invasion was pretty much a coin toss. And back then, Ukrainian bonds were trading at 80 cents and Russian bonds were trading somewhere between 100 and 150. So we felt that maybe Ukraine had 10 points of upside in the fortunate occasion of no invasion or maybe 50 or 60 of downside. Post the 24th, we saw assets trade, bonds trade as low as perhaps low 20s/high teens and so that gave us the ability to establish initial position in Ukraine and quite frankly, be very dynamic with that position. Because we do expect that on the other side of this conflict, that yes, there will be a very strong and well supported Ukraine by the West but I would also