A research-focused, actively managed US ultra-short fixed income solution. We seek to protect principal while generating income through diversification of risk and the ability to exploit relative value opportunities.
Our investment believe the fixed income markets are efficient with respect to interest rate risk, but regularly misprice securities that are exposed to credit, prepayment, liquidity, and currency risks. To exploit these inefficiencies and potentially provide our clients with consistent excess returns, we focus on optimal security selection, emphasize the spread sectors, set risk-controlled duration targets, and construct portfolios with attractive risk-reward characteristics.
Disciplined and time-tested investment approach
- Deep fundamental credit research, a stringent relative value framework, and with top-down risk management.
Nimble approach
- An ability to be flexible and adapt the strategy to the prevailing environment in order to generate repeatable and dependable alpha.
An experienced and stable investment team
- A well-resourced, cohesive team of investment professionals with senior portfolio managers who have a long tenure of working together.
We believe long-term outperformance in corporate credit is most reliably generated by deep proprietary research to identify undervalued securities, and we focus on relative value while maintaining a technology-enhanced approach to risk management.
We leverage the expertise of the broad credit team, with research acting as the gatekeeper to the securities we hold, trading providing relative value and technical opportunities, and portfolio management setting the overall risk profile and positioning the portfolio for the prevailing environment.
Disciplined and time-tested investment approach
Macro assessment
Set the course for the secular trend but navigate intermediate cyclical events
Credit risk allocation
Determine the appropriate sizing of overall credit risk
Relative value
Spread / yield comparison versus industry peers, credit ratings, liquidity, and capital structure
Technical analysis
Deal size, buyer base, index eligibility, demand from foreign and domestic flows
Credit risk factors
Positioning across curve, quality, capital structure, and sector
Security selection
Deep fundamental credit research across the investible universe
For more information about our Credit capabilities
Risks
The value of the portfolio may fall as well as rise, and you may not receive back the amount invested.
Fixed income securities can lose value, and investors can lose principal, as interest rates rise. They also may be affected by economic conditions that hinder an issuer's ability to make interest and principal payments on its debt. This includes prepayment risk, the risk that the principal of a bond that is held by a portfolio will be prepaid prior to maturity at the time when interest rates are lower than what the bond was paying. A portfolio may then have to reinvest that money at a lower interest rate.
Securities in the lowest of the rating categories considered to be investment grade (that is, Moody’s Baa or S&P BBB) have some speculative characteristics.
High yielding, non-investment-grade bonds (junk bonds) involve higher risk than investment grade bonds. The high yield secondary market is particularly susceptible to liquidity problems when institutional investors, such as mutual funds and certain other financial institutions, temporarily stop buying bonds for regulatory, financial, or other reasons. In addition, a less liquid secondary market makes it more difficult to obtain precise valuations of the high yield securities.
Liquidity risk is the possibility that securities cannot be readily sold within seven days at approximately the price at which a fund has valued them.
International investments entail risks including fluctuation in currency values, differences in accounting principles, or economic or political instability. Investing in emerging markets can be riskier than investing in established foreign markets due to increased volatility, lower trading volume, and higher risk of market closures. In many emerging markets, there is substantially less publicly available information, and the available information may be incomplete or misleading. Legal claims are generally more difficult to pursue.
Portfolios may invest in derivatives, which may involve additional expenses and are subject to risk, including the risk that a security or securities index to which the derivative is associated moves in the opposite direction from what the portfolio manager anticipated. Another risk of derivative transactions is the creditworthiness of the counterparty because the transactions rely upon the counterparties’ ability to fulfill their contractual obligations. US Treasury futures are used to manage portfolio duration on a fully covered basis (no leverage is utilized). Total-rate-of-return swaps are utilized as an overlay strategy. Credit default swaps can be used to gain credit exposure, reduce credit exposure, or express a view of convergence between two credits. Currency forwards can be used to tactically increase or reduce the portfolio’s currency risk in a liquid, timely manner during volatile market periods. Interest rate swaps can be used to limit, or manage, the portfolio’s exposure to fluctuations in interest rates. Derivatives used are strictly constrained by client investment policy.
IBOR risk is the risk that changes related to the use of the London interbank offered rate (LIBOR) or similar rates (such as EONIA) could have adverse impacts on financial instruments that reference these rates. The abandonment of these rates and transition to alternative rates could affect the value and liquidity of instruments that reference them and could affect investment strategy performance.
The disruptions caused by natural disasters, pandemics, or similar events could prevent the strategy from executing advantageous investment decisions in a timely manner and could negatively impact the strategy’s ability to achieve its investment objective and the value of the strategy’s investments.
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