Managed by duo Mark Nash and Nicholas Wall, who joined from Invesco Asset Management last summer, the renamed Old Mutual Strategic Absolute Return Bond Fund will seek to generate positive returns on a rolling 12-month basis, with stable levels of volatility, uncorrelated to bond and equity market conditions.
OMGI said the change was in the best interests of investors, and represents the best opportunity to grow assets, which in the fund’s current guise are a paltry $24.8m (€22.2m).
The UK version of the Old Mutual Global Strategic Bond Fund, also managed by Nash and Wall, will remain unaffected with assets at £152.4m.
The managers will aim to generate alpha from across developed and emerging market fixed income and currency markets.
The emphasis is on investing in highly liquid assets, giving the portfolio managers flexibility to express their convictions, while maintaining liquidity and seeking to preserve capital.
The fund can also short the market, to profit when prices fall, in order to help achieve consistent positive returns through a variety of market conditions.
“Increasing demand from investors for absolute return funds has been driven by long-term changes in the macroeconomic, market and geopolitical environment; OMGI believes that this backdrop has created vast opportunities within fixed income and FX markets,” the firm said.
“Unlike many other absolute return bond funds, it will avoid a central and persistent investment theme, thereby aiming to escape the risk of ‘crowding’ associated with many funds in this sector.”
