Fund Objective

The trust aims to achieve a high level of income and maintenance of capital over the medium to long term.

View on Past Performance

There was scant new issuance in the Primary market during August, as syndicates entered the traditional mid summer holiday period. That said, we did participate in a new Lower-Tier 2 deal from The Bank of Ireland. Outside of the financial sector, we trimmed our overweight in the telecoms sector following its strong performance over the past few months. We did not make any adjustments to the overall duration of the fund during the month.

Future Expectations

Although there are significant challenges facing the global economy, we remain of the view that investment grade spreads continue to offer excellent value. Furthermore, although we would agree that a certain degree of weakness in the credit market is justified, we think that even with the most extreme potential rise in default rates, much of the frailty has already been priced in.We believe the risk remains a prolonged and painful recession, although we continue to view the possibility of a "depression" like scenario as being highly unlikely. The outlook for this year remains undoubtedly challenging though, and we do not expect any sudden turnaround in the economic environment.

Fund Details