Manulife Asset Management won nearly USD3 billion in new fixed income mandates in the first quarter of 2017.
The firm’s total assets under management reached USD358 billion as at 31 March 2017, a USD15 billion increase over the fourth quarter of 2016.
The largest mandate this year was from the Public Employees Retirement System of Mississippi. The USD487 million mandate was in the Core Fixed Income strategy and funded in March.
“We are honoured to be selected for these important mandates, and we look forward to a long partnership managing assets for our clients,” says Kai Sotorp, Manulife Asset Management’s president and chief executive officer.
“As always, our focus is on excellence in investment management as we continue to provide solutions to investors and clients worldwide,” says Christopher Conkey, Manulife Asset Management’s global chief investment officer.
The new wins for Manulife Asset Management were diversified across several fixed income strategies, with the majority won by teams managing Core and Core Plus Fixed Income, Strategic Fixed Income, and Total Return Bond/Securitised Fixed income.
Manulife Asset Management’s Core Fixed Income strategy employs a disciplined investment process that seeks to add value by following a relative value approach to sector allocation and issue selection, engaging in intensive fundamental credit research, and identifying points on the yield curve with the greatest return potential. The firm believes strong relative performance may be generated through bottom-up active management of sector allocation and issue selection, combined with yield curve positioning. The team is led by Howard C Greene and Jeffrey N Given.
The firm’s Core Plus team believes that strong relative performance may be generated through bottom-up active management of sector allocation and issue selection, combined with yield curve positioning. The team’s investment process seeks to add value by: following a relative value approach to sector allocation and issue selection, engaging in intensive fundamental credit research, and identifying points on the yield curve with the greatest return potential. The team is also led by Greene and Given.
Manulife Asset Management’s Strategic Fixed Income team holds that strong, consistent returns may be generated by investing primarily in a portfolio of global government and corporate bonds, including emerging markets and high yield securities. Currency management seeks to further diversify the portfolio, mitigate risk and add value. By expanding the investment universe to include multiple sectors and currencies, the team believes it is able to increase its potential to add value while reducing risk. The team is led by Daniel S Janis III, Thomas C Goggins, Kisoo Park, and Christopher Chapman.
The firm’s Total Return Bond/Securitised Fixed income team believes securitised assets offer interesting sourcing opportunities due to information barriers and limited competition in a large, inefficient marketplace. The portfolio is managed with a value orientation and focused on diversification among securitised asset classes, income generation as a consistent component of total return and maximising risk efficiency. The team is led by Peter Farley, Jeffrey Given and David A Bees.
