The Asia Bond Plus strategy will invest in emerging markets corporate, quasi-sovereign and sovereign issues across the Asia bond universe.
Outside of Asia – the “plus” regions — countries in emerging Europe, the Middle East and Africa are included for diversification, according to a statement from the firm.
“The investment universe offers exposure to 50% of world GDP and captures 75% of the world’s GDP growth that is underrepresented in major bond indices,” the statement said.
The firm believes Asia’s “strong macro fundamentals and growth, a growing issuer universe and regional market dynamics that offer lower correlation to global credit indices” are reasons to invest in the region.
The strategy will be co-managed by Elisabeth Colleran in Boston and Thu Ha Chow in Singapore, who was formerly head of Asian credit at Aberdeen Asset Management (now Aberdeen Standard) in Singapore.
“The strategy combines the potential benefits of investing in Asia credit with the potential of exposure to parts of Africa, the Middle East and Europe, thus being able to leverage the traditional emerging markets story, infrastructure-supported growth and diversification benefits,” said Jae Park, chief investment officer, in the statement.
In April, Loomis Sayles set up an Asia credit team in Singapore and planned to debut a fixed income fund with seed money from parent Natixis IM.
The same month, another Natixis affiliate, Seeyond, received a greenlight from the Securities and Futures Commission to launch its Asia MinVol Equity Income Fund, according to records from the regulator.
Natixis IM affiliate Loomis Sayles manages $17bn in emerging markets debt assets, according to the firm. Its emerging markets debt team manages $2.5bn in dedicated emerging markets debt portfolios, including corporate debt, local currency debt and short duration credit.
