Winnersrationale

It is fair to say that Nomura Asset Management has pedigree in high-yield bonds: the fund manager has been investing in the asset class since its inception more than 30 years ago. That is a sufficiently long period to develop a dedicated and differentiated approach to picking high yield credits.

Nomura Asset Management identifies and invests in what it believes to be “Strong Horse” companies. Using this investment philosophy, its US High Yield Bond Fund has proven adept at selecting issuers that can effectively manage their debt loads throughout the economic cycle and whose creditworthiness tends to increase over time.

That is in no small part due to steady hands tasked with managing the fund. Steve Kotsen has been the lead portfolio manager since 2000. Eight out of the 12 portfolio analysts involved in the fund’s management have been doing so for more than 15 years.

That process and expertise has flowed through directly to superior investment returns and protection of client capital. From January to August 2022, a period in which fixed income markets were subject to significant volatility, Nomura Asset Management’s US High Yield Bond Fund returned a negative 10.9% net of fees, compared to -11.03% for the benchmark ICE BofA US High Yield Constrained Total Return USD. On a three-year time frame the Nomura fund returned an annualised 1.96%, compared to 0.77% for the index. Its five-year track record is an annualised 2.83%, versus 2.41% for the benchmark.

Those attributes did not go unnoticed by the Asia-Pacific private banking industry in 2022. During the period under consideration, the US High Yield Bond Fund enjoyed significant net inflows from private bank clients in the region. In addition, the fund was onboarded onto a substantial number of new platforms.

For all of these reasons and more, Nomura Asset Management wins Best Fund Provider – High Yield Bond in Asian Private Banker’s 2023 Asset Management Awards for Excellence.