RankiaPro Funds Meeting in Paris: Insights from Fund Managers
7 OCT, 2025
The latest edition of the RankiaPro Funds Meetings took place on Thrusday, October 2th, at the prestigious Hotel Plaza Athenée . The event brought together top investment professionals to discuss market trends, investment strategies, and economic outlooks for the coming months.
During the session, attendees had the opportunity to engage with distinguished speakers, including:
- Thibault Destrés, Head of Fixed Income at Anaxis Asset Management.
- Adam Darling, Investment Manager Fixed Income at Jupiter Asset Management.
- Xavier Nicolas, Portfolio Manager at Quaero Capital.
- Richard O'Connell, Head of Business Development - EMEA at Smead Capital Management.
The morning began with a networking breakfast, allowing fund selectors and buyers to exchange insights on key market challenges and opportunities. Each speaker then presented their firm's investment approach, fund strategies, and market perspectives, providing attendees with valuable takeaways on portfolio positioning and asset allocation in the current economic climate.
Thibault Destrés, Head of Fixed Income at Anaxis Asset Management.
The Anaxis Income Advantage (AIA) fund is a global, flexible bond fund, actively managed without a benchmark, focused on corporate bonds—mainly in Europe—with no sovereign or derivative exposure. Its strategy is based on three performance drivers: Carry (capturing coupons and roll-down effects, 50–100% of the portfolio), Spread (revaluation of undervalued bonds, 0–50%), and Tactical (short-term positions in specific sectors or markets, 0–30%). This structure allows adaptation to market cycles while mitigating interest rate and credit risks.
The investment process combines proprietary research, rigorous bond selection, and a top-down macro view, with issuer exposure limits and a focus on liquidity. The portfolio holds 120–140 positions, over 75% in Europe, with a duration actively managed between 2 and 4 years.
Classified as SFDR Article 9, AIA integrates ESG criteria, excludes polluting sectors, and targets a 60% carbon footprint reduction between 2018 and 2028. Since 2020, it has outperformed European High Yield and Investment Grade ETFs with lower volatility, delivering +10.88% in 2023 and +7.89% in 2024.
Adam Darling Investment Manager Fixed Income at Jupiter Asset Management.
The Jupiter Global High Yield Bond Fund aims to achieve income and capital growth over the medium to long term with a focussed portfolio of global high yield corporate bonds. Through a disciplined macro and credit process, we are looking to deliver alpha by identifying those bonds that we think offer the opportunity for the most compelling risk-adjusted returns relative to the market. Over time, our objective is to deliver superior total return with strong risk metrics to our investors.
Our large and highly experienced team of credit analysts are dedicated to undertaking detailed due diligence on issuers and individual issues in the search for alpha.
Xavier Nicolas, Portfolio Manager at Quaero Capital.
Quaero Capital Funds (Lux) – Bond Investment Opportunity offers a global and flexible exposure to OECD bond markets. The fund aims to outperform the €STR + 2.50%. It combines an opportunistic and non-benchmarked approach across a wide spectrum of the bond asset class with a responsible investor approach (Article 8 fund / SRI label).
The strategy implemented allows for an active and flexible approach to bond markets through several levers: active management of bond sensitivity within a range [0; +10], dynamic allocation exploiting a wide spectrum of bond strategies (Sovereign & quasi-sovereign, IG Financials, IG Corporates, High Yield), active credit risk management with flexibility on High Yield, and the ability to capture international opportunities.
The portfolio rating cannot be lower than BBB-.
The fund does not invest in complex products, structured products, or leveraged products.
Richard O'Connell, Head of Business Development - EMEA at Smead Capital Management.
At Smead Capital Management, we’re stock market investors. Our investors are individuals, advisors, family offices, and institutions globally who invest with the firm through its mutual funds, separate accounts, and other investment vehicles. We advise investors who play the long game through a low-turnover, differentiated value discipline seeking wonderful companies to build wealth.
The Smead US Value UCITS Fund invests in US large capitalization companies through concentrated positions (typically 25–30 securities). The strategy is managed by Lead Portfolio Manager Bill Smead and Co-Portfolio Manager Cole Smead, CFA. Our portfolio weightings are primarily driven by our eight investment criteria. The strategy is best defined as contrarian and/or classic value with low turnover (~15–25%). Buy criteria assume a three-to-five-year holding period, with desired holding periods of more than five years.
