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Nedgroup Investments
Nedgroup Investments, a London-based asset manager with over $20 billion ($25.4 billion) assets under management, has announced the launch of its Global Strategic Bond Fund.

The fund will be co-managed by Alex Ralph and David Roberts, who have more than 50 years’ combined industry experience, the firm said in a statement. Ralph spent over 15 years at Artemis, where she set up and managed the £1.8 billion Artemis Strategic Bond Fund. Roberts spent 14 years at Aegon Asset Management (formerly Kames Capital) as head of fixed income, and was previously head of global bonds at Liontrust Asset Management.

The core, active fund will focus on interest rate and credit risk, within an unlevered core global bond portfolio that emphasises liquidity. The managers will avoid lower-quality bonds which are illiquid, the firm added.

“We believe the current market offers the perfect opportunity for bond investors to go back to the core, whereby bonds now constitute the value part of a portfolio. Many leading bond funds have chased growth, but we will restrict equity-like assets such as high yield, emerging market and subordinated debt as investors will need to broaden their risk approach in this new regime,” Ralph said.

The strategy of the fund will be to outperform the Bloomberg Global Aggregate Total Return Index ($ hedged) over a rolling three-year period. Its base currency is dollars, but hedged share classes are available in sterling and euros. Duration is three to eight years and the fund is classified as article 8 under the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR).