American Beacon Advisors has launched the American Beacon Sound Point Floating Rate Income Fund, the first mutual fund reorganised into the American Beacon Funds family from Sound Point Capital Management.
The bank loan strategy used by the Fund was first launched by Sound Point on 3 December, 2012. For the one-year period ending November 30, 2015, the Fund was in the first percentile for total return in the US open-end bank loan category among 250 bank loan funds as published by Morningstar.
"We are thrilled to bring a product with an established track record of outperformance to our clients," says Gene L Needles, Jr, president and chief executive officer of American Beacon. "We are believers in the value that active management offers to investors, and the results that Steve Ketchum and his team have achieved at Sound Point are a testament to that value."
The Fund seeks to provide a high level of current income consistent with strong risk-adjusted returns using an in-depth, bottom-up, fundamental approach with the goal of minimising credit and default risks. The Fund strives to achieve its objectives by identifying fundamentally attractive senior-secured first and second lien floating rate loans and other floating rate debt securities.
"We see this as a perfect marriage between two excellent firms with distinct skill sets," says Stephen Ketchum, co-founder and managing partner of New York-based Sound Point. "We're experts in managing corporate credit investments, but don't maintain a large retail distribution network. American Beacon, on the other hand, has built a spectacular wholesale distribution network. So, when we think about those aspects as the basis for a business partnership, they couldn't be more complementary."
