Investment Objective
By combining small issue sizes and short maturities, the strategy captures value in an inefficient part of the high yield market. Detailed bottom-up credit analysis on underfollowed securities generates excess returns vs the credit quality of our holdings.
Latest Meeting Note
Meeting 19 Apr 2023
The team behind the Concise Short Term High Yield strategy run a short duration credit portfolio focusing on the high yield space, with a value tilt. The strategy focuses on short-duration bonds to lower volatility and help insulate the ...
The team behind the Concise Short Term High Yield strategy run a short duration credit portfolio focusing on the high yield space, with a value tilt. The strategy focuses on short-duration bonds to lower volatility and help insulate the portfolio from interest rate changes and inflation while the team focus on under-followed, smaller issues to further reduce volatility and increase yield (due to the space being ignored/unavailable to larger institutional buyers). The strategy benefits from natural liquidity through the short duration nature of the bonds, with c. 50% of the book turning to cash each month. The teams research process provides them a bench of ideas to bring into the book when cash comes available and this combined with the naturally liquidating portfolio provides flexibility to adapt to changing market conditions. To further reduce volatility, a hedging strategy is employed using the Russell 2000, which has significant correlation with the high-yield bond portfolio, especially in down markets. The investment process focuses on finding value in the inefficient high-yield bond market, generating high income while minimizing credit risk, lowering volatility, and adding diversification. The strategy targets underfollowed, tradeable high-yield issues with maturities within three years, primarily in the US, but also in Canada, Europe, and Australia. The average maturity of portfolio holdings is two to three years, and interest income produces most of the portfolio return with no leverage. The portfolio is well-diversified across individual positions and industries, with a focus on risk management.
Performance
JAN | FEB | MAR | APR | MAY | JUN | JUL | AUG | SEP | OCT | NOV | DEC | YTD | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2023 | 0.9 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 0.8 | 0.6 | 0.9 | 0.8 | 0.9 | 0.4 | 0.0 | 0.1 | |
2022 | 1.0 | 0.3 | 0.9 | 0.6 | 0.2 | 0.7 | 0.1 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 0.9 | 0.1 | 0.8 | 0.8 |