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Nomura Asset Management (NAM), the asset management firm, is expanding its fixed-income offering with a new fund for corporate bonds from emerging markets. The „Ireland – Emerging Market Corporate Bond Fund“ will be managed by Nomura Corporate Research and Asset Management (NCRAM), the investment boutique specializing in high-yield and emerging market bonds. The strategy aims to create value through both bottom-up credit selection and top-down country allocation, leveraging NCRAM’s expertise in corporate credit and emerging market research. The fund is benchmarked against the J.P. Morgan CEMBI Broad Diversified Index and will be managed by NCRAM’s Emerging Markets Fixed Income team, led by Meno Stroemer. The actively managed fund combines a top-down approach that considers global macro factors and intensive analysis of individual emerging markets with a rigorous bottom-up fundamental analysis of individual companies. The investment team aims to build a diversified portfolio of attractively valued „Strong Horse“ companies that are well positioned to generate long-term positive cash flows across different phases of the economic cycle. In addition, an ESG analysis will be integrated into the investment process as part of the strategy to comply with Article 8 of the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR). „We are dealing with one of the fastest-growing asset classes in the world here. Today, the outstanding volume is already similar in size to the market for corporate bonds in the euro area. At the same time, the risk-return profile makes this asset class an attractive addition to the portfolio, especially when investing with an active manager who can identify companies with good prospects for spread tightening,“ says Meno Stroemer, Head of Emerging Market Corporate Bond Portfolio Management. With around 2,000 bonds from over 750 issuers totaling $2.5 trillion as of August 31, 2023, the EM Corporate Hard Currency Bonds market segment (measured by the JPM CEMBI Broad Diversified Index) offers many investment opportunities across all sectors and regions. NCRAM will be responsible for portfolio management of the fund as a sub-adviser.
