In February of last year, Henderson announced that six credit specialists had joined the firm in Philadelphia to broaden their US and global credit capabilities. As 2014 begins, Stephen Thariyan, Global Head of Credit updates investors on the integration of the team and his plans for next year.
One of the major attractions of the hires in the US has been their similar investment philosophy and approach to adding value in the asset class based around bottom up fundamental credit research. “In some respects we have made some very straightforward adjustments to incorporate the US resource into our weekly credit meeting and Kevin Loome into our monthly top down asset allocation review for credit portfolios. In addition, we have now created a dedicated fortnightly high yield strategy meeting, which focuses on the high yield strategies across fixed income and includes the high yield portfolio managers, the Head of Credit Research and representatives from loans (David Milward), retail credit (Nick Ware) and secured credit (Colin Fleury)”, highlights Stephen. Analyst research notes are shared globally across fixed income and equities on Henderson’s Sharepoint system, an online internal research portal.
All members of the new team in Philadelphia have spent time in London enabling them to understand Henderson’s broader fund range, build relationships and day to day contact with the London portfolio managers and analysts, and understand the systems and processes hands on. One of the key action points agreed for 2014 is an exchange program in which credit analysts and dealers will rotate through London and Philadelphia over the course of the year. “This is important in my mind so that analysts, dealers and portfolio managers cement strong relationships, familiarity with each other and can communicate effectively”, adds Stephen.
In April, Henderson launched the US High Yield Opportunities strategy managed by Kevin Loome. While it has only been running for seven months, performance has been excellent and is top decile to date, continuing the strong performance and reputation that Kevin and the US analysts have built up over the years. Last month, Henderson launched the Global High Yield Bond strategy which is managed by Kevin Loome and Chris Bullock. “I am very excited at this prospect to broaden our high yield capabilities for our clients”, states Thariyan.
“While the Global High Yield strategy will naturally be the highest conviction expression of the views of our Global Credit Team, a broad range of fixed income strategies are beginning to see the benefit of this capability reflecting our unconstrained approach to building portfolios”. For example, Henderson’s Absolute Return and Total Return Bond strategies managed by the Investment Strategy Group are directly drawing on the bottom up credit ideas in US high yield. “Our Multi-Asset Credit strategy has participated in US loan deals such as Dell and BMC software and the team has provided valuable input on US loans underlying CLO transactions”.
Stephen Thariyan concludes : “It has been an extremely encouraging start in the US with the integration of the credit teams across the Atlantic having gone to plan”.
