When Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent most emerging-markets funds plummeting, Perth Tolle’s Freedom Index Fund avoided most of the carnage—because economies run by despots will never be on her buy listimportant lessons aren’t learned in the classroom. In 2003, the year after Houston money manager Perth Tolle graduated from Trinity University in San Antonio with a degree in finance, she spent a year in Hong Kong living with her father, reconnecting with her Chinese roots.
Those risks crystallized last year, when China imposed a series of arbitrary fines against its largest tech companies, including a $2.8 billion penalty on Alibaba. Tencent and Alibaba were forced to pledge more than $30 billion to the government’s “common prosperity” initiatives—a gesture of appeasement Tolle calls “shareholder theft”—and their stocks cratered. China also forced its thriving online tutoring companies to become nonprofits.
Tolle originally intended to go to law school, but after her year in Hong Kong she began working as a financial advisor for Fidelity, first in Los Angeles and then in Houston. She had clients from Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia who told her they wanted to avoid investing in their home countries, likening it to funding terrorism. That sensibility mirrored how she felt about China.
After three days of fishing and drinking wine at the camp, Arnott committed to backing Tolle and later became an investor in her firm, Life & Liberty Indexes. Tolle created her index and shopped it to BlackRock and State Street, which turned her down. In 2018, she struck a deal with Alpha Architect, launching her ETF with the ticker FRDM in May 2019. Freedom 100 Emerging Markets ETF has a 0.49% expense fee, most of which goes to Tolle.