Fund Objective

To provide competitive long term total returns.

View on Past Performance

Corporate bonds were typically volatile, but managed to end May close to where they started. An early tightening of credit spreads was driven in part by encouraging news flow from HSBC and bond insurer MBIA, but this was reversed later in the month by poor economic data. The Fund's weighting in government bonds was reduced in favour of attractively-priced new issues, including: UK, European and Australian banks; US brokers (Morgan Stanley); and miners (Xstrata).Performance of new issues has been generally very strong. The Fund performed marginally ahead of its benchmark in May. Positive contributions from stock selection, particularly within the securitized sector, proved to be the main driver of performance. Despite gaining from sector allocation decisions within the banking and securitized sectors, the Fund lost a little ground through its holding in UK government bonds.

Fund Details