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by  PH&N Institutional team Nov 22, 2022

So far in our Investing in Global Bonds series, we have demonstrated that there are many potential advantages to adopting a global perspective when it comes to the fixed income opportunity set. However, establishing the case for an allocation at the investment policy level requires more than a favourable historical profile as a standalone asset class. Institutional investors manage multi-asset portfolios that are designed to support specific objectives, some of which are not wholly based on investment returns. Furthermore, making investment policy decisions by looking through a rear-view mirror can potentially result in the creation of portfolios that are ill-suited for the future environment. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to examine the potential role of a global fixed income opportunity set in institutional portfolios by considering a forward-looking, objective-oriented context.

Background

Institutional investors typically have very specific objectives associated with the pool of assets under their care, for which they often act as fiduciaries. An endowment fund, for example, is typically interested in achieving a long-term return that will support its inflation-adjusted spending commitments, while preserving capital during short-term downside events – in other words, they are investing in an “asset-only” context. A pension fund, on the other hand, is typically most concerned with the performance of its assets in relation to its liabilities, which can result in a myriad of different objective-oriented trade-offs, from closing a funding gap to total liability defeasance – they are investing in an “asset-liability” context. Therefore, when it comes to making long-term strategic decisions, such as introducing a new asset class into the investment policy asset mix, it is critical to evaluate the risk/reward trade-off through the correct lens. It is also important to evaluate the decision at the total portfolio level, where the different asset mix exposures interact with each another to support these risk and reward objectives.

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