Vontobel launches Fixed Income Boutique in North America, expanding asset class offerings

Vontobel has launched three emerging markets fixed income strategies, providing US and Canadian investors first-time access to the time-tested bond market expertise of its USD 25bn Fixed Income Boutique.

Vontobel’s Emerging Markets Bonds team follows a differentiated, high-conviction and bottom-up focused investment approach. It is based on a contrarian approach, striving to generate consistent and strong risk-adjusted returns for investors by capturing value and event-driven opportunities. Through ESG consideration and integration, the team aims to improve the long-term risk-return characteristics of its portfolios while reflecting its clients’ values.

The following three strategies are now available as separate account vehicles to US and Canadian investors:

• The Emerging Markets Debt Strategy specializes primarily in hard-currency sovereign debt and aims to capitalize on primarily bottom-up value opportunities that occur due to irrational, herd-like investor behavior, while monitoring the liquidity and diversification of the portfolio. The strategy is managed by Luc D’hooge, CFA, and Wouter van Overfelt, PhD.
• The Emerging Markets Corporate Bond Strategy employs a bottom-up and relative-value approach, using in-depth knowledge of issuers to find value opportunities and event-driven situations which may be decorrelated from the broader market and global interest rates. The strategy is managed by Wouter Van Overfelt, PhD, and Sergey Goncharov.
• The Emerging Markets Blend Strategy combines the best ideas from the emerging market sovereign and corporate debt strategies in hard currencies with a local currency overlay—a solution for US and Canadian investors who desire to outsource their emerging market fixed income allocation. The strategy is managed by an experienced group of portfolio managers within the Emerging Markets Bonds team: Luc D’hooge, CFA, Sergey Goncharov, Wouter Van Overfelt, PhD, Thierry Larose, and Carl Vermassen.

The portfolio managers on these three emerging markets strategies have an average of 25 years of experience, and have been managing these strategies since their respective inceptions.

“Emerging markets fixed income is a key pillar for us at Vontobel. Recurring strong risk-adjusted returns versus peers and the market have allowed us to develop our global client base, with significant growth over recent years,” said Simon Lue-Fong, Head of Fixed Income. “We look forward to sharing these strategies with North American investors.”

“Investors are increasingly looking for new solutions that provide yield and diversification while managing risk,” added Thomas Wittwer, Chief Executive Officer of Vontobel Asset Management, Inc. US. “We are pleased to deliver this emerging markets fixed income offering to clients in the region, incorporating our time-tested active approach and drawing on our 37-year foothold in North America and near 100-year history in investment management.”

Vontobel has been offering fixed income solutions since 1988. Its Fixed Income Boutique manages USD 25bn in client assets by offering pertinent solutions in Global Credit, Global Bonds, Emerging Markets and Flexible Strategies. The Fixed Income team consists of 41 investment professionals located in Zurich, New York and Hong Kong.