GAM Investments (GAM) has launched an Asian fixed income capability, repositioning its emerging markets corporate bond strategy to focus specifically on Asian bonds.
The GAM Asian Income Bond strategy aims to capitalise on opportunities created by the growth of the Asian fixed income universe, with the hard currency Asian bond market quadrupling in size to more than $1 trillion since 2011.
Amy Kam has been appointed as lead manager of the strategy, working alongside Dorthe Nielsen, Mark Pearce and Andrew Dewar in a four-strong team.
The team will utilise a highly active approach, combining top-down macro analysis with bottom-up financial analysis to create a portfolio of 60-80 high conviction holdings in Asian fixed income. It will invest predominantly in corporate credit with additional quasi-government or government bonds, making the most of the expertise of GAM’s emerging market debt and equity teams.
Ms Kam is an investment manager in GAM’s global credit team, covering strategies across the Middle East, Asia and Africa. She joined GAM following its acquisition of the Augustus, the fixed income and foreign exchange specialist in May 2009. Prior to this she worked for Investec Asset Management, where she was responsible for risk and performance analysis.
Commenting on the opportunities in the Asian fixed income universe, she said: “Asian bonds now represent more than half of the global emerging market hard currency bond market. This growth stems from stable forces, namely demographic growth in China and India, as well as increased economic diversification, greater government transparency and deepening capital markets in Asia. These developments have created a market that is deep, liquid and scalable, and which offers investors higher average yields than those available in North America and Europe.”
Tim Rainsford, group head of sales and distribution at GAM, added: “We see significant opportunity in the fast growing, but still emerging, Asian fixed income market, which displays a low correlation to other credit markets and superior risk adjusted returns. Amy and her team have a tremendous amount of experience in this market and we believe the strategy would be an attractive addition to any existing global bond portfolio.”
GAM is an independent, pure-play asset manager, offering active investment solutions and products for institutions, financial intermediaries and private investors. Headquartered in Zurich, it currently employs approximately 850 people across 14 countries, with investment centres in London, Cambridge, Zurich, Hong Kong, New York, Milan and Lugano.
As of 30 September 2019, the group has assets under management totalling $136.1 billion.
