Amundi launches a new short-term fixed income fund

Amundi announced today the launch of Amundi Funds Global Short Term Bond Fund, an actively managed fund focused on short-term fixed income and money market instruments.

The fund's investment philosophy incorporates a global top-down and bottom-up approach to identify opportunities through market cycles, using a proven investment process. The macro top-down process includes the analysis of interest rates, credit spreads and economic trends to identify the geographical areas that offer the best risk-adjusted return opportunities. The bottom-up approach uses fundamental and quantitative analysis to select specific issuers and securities, along with yield optimization strategies.

Classified under SFDR as Article 8, the fund aims to achieve an ESG score higher than that of the universe. This is achieved through sector exclusions, a 'best-in-class' approach that selects the highest rated ESG assets, and the use of green, social and sustainable bonds when possible.

The result is a diversified portfolio of predominantly investment grade short-term bonds that aims to achieve a combination of income and capital growth for conservative fixed income investors, while aiming to outperform the return of the Bloomberg Global Aggregate 1-3 Year Total Return Index.

The fund will be co-managed by Jacques Keller and Rajesh Puri, managers of the Global Fixed Income team at Amundi (UK) Limited. They will have the support of the rest of the Global Fixed Income team based in London, with an average of over 20 years of investment experience.

Market conditions offer conservative fixed income investors an attractive entry point

With a significant revision of nominal and real yields and a pronounced inversion of the yield curves of developed markets, we believe that current market conditions offer conservative fixed income investors an attractive entry point not seen in almost two decades. Amundi shares the view that the cycle of tightening global monetary policy is largely behind us, and that many central banks are leaning towards a "higher for longer" scenario (higher for longer). Thus, we believe that yields will remain well above their historical average for a prolonged period in order to control persistent inflation. With the increase in geopolitical tensions and high economic uncertainty, short-term global fixed income can provide a low duration and volatility haven, offering yields equivalent to longer terms.

The fund is currently registered in the following countries: France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Spain.

"We are delighted to offer this latest addition to the Alpha Fixed Income product family, capitalizing on the successful investment process of our team throughout the market cycles. With a yield comparable to longer-term debt, now is an attractive time to invest in short-term fixed income".

Grégoire Pesquès, CIO of Global Fixed Income and Head of Aggregate Strategies at Amundi