Anaxis, a pioneer in maturity funds
At Anaxis, we firmly believe that maturity funds offer many benefits. We are among the pioneers and European market leaders in this space. Our 2024 emerging market fund is the eighth maturity fund launched by our team, and the second in the emerging market debt segment.
The principles behind this fund structure offer significant advantages. First of all, they bring together investors with the same investment horizon. This provides the AUM stability that is essential in a medium-term investment strategy. Secondly, we invest in bonds whose maturity is close to the fund’s maturity. The strategy consists in receiving coupons during the lifecycle of the bonds, and holding them until maturity. The role of our management team is to draw on our expertise to optimise the bond selection process. This is achieved through a fundamental credit approach.
A strategy adapted to emerging countries
This fund structure is particularly attractive as regards emerging countries, which can be prone to periods of volatility. It is therefore important to have a structure that allows us to maintain positions and protect investors. This is the case of the maturity fund, with its convergence effect. If the fund management team keeps the bonds in the portfolio, and provided its credit risk analysis is correct, investors can rest assured that they will be repaid at par and able to pocket the coupons, despite possible volatility over the lifecycle of the bonds. This gives our investors very good visibility.
Furthermore, this fund structure allows for significant diversification, which is an essential factor in the credit market. Anaxis EM 2024 is invested in approximately 130 bonds. Through this diversified selection, investors benefit from the work of our team of managers and analysts, who conduct in-depth research into each and every bond.
Resilience and performance
The performance of our EM 2024 fund in 2020 is the perfect illustration of its robustness. The beginning of the year was difficult in all markets, yet we held up well in the downturn. This was due to the maturity fund structure, but also to the resilient positioning of the fund. We also rebounded very well as the markets normalised.
Another important point is that our EM 2024 fund has been less volatile, with a Sharpe ratio well above that of the indices and competing funds. The fund is thus rated five stars by Quantalys at the end of March 2021, with good ratings for the ESG criteria of this database, which is rare for an emerging market approach.
