BNY Mellon Investment Management has launched the BNY Mellon Floating Rate Credit fund.
The Article 8-classified strategy will be managed by global asset manager Insight Investment and will invest primarily in floating rate debt. It has been designed to provide income while protecting against interest rate volatility by maintaining a low interest rate duration, BNY explained.
BNY Mellon IM explained that the rationale behind the fund was that floating rate credit has a "lower sensitivity" to interest rate changes compared with fixed rate debt instruments, meaning it can offer investors a risk and return profile of "loan-like" returns and lower capital volatility in a rising rate environment.
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Floating rate debt can also offer opportunities when yields are higher at shorter maturities, the investment manager said, as it creates scope for "harvesting higher yield on the front end".
The fund's management team comprises senior portfolio manager Ulrich Gerhard and portfolio managers Cathy Braganza and Lorraine Specketer, who also manage the BNY Mellon Global Short-Dates High Yield fund, which was launched in 2016 and holds $708.7m in assets.
Ulrich Gerhard, senior portfolio manager at Insight Investment, said: "We favour sectors that we view as offering attractive asset valuations, which operate in stable competitive environments and have high barriers to entry.
"Our emphasis is on issuers which we believe to have a strong business model, appropriate capital structure and resilient cashflows, implying a clear path to repayment and reduced risk of defaults."
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Matt Oomen, global head of distribution at BNY Mellon Investment Management, added: "Insight's strategy emphasises bottom-up credit analysis and cashflow generation, delivered by a portfolio management team with broad and deep expertise in fixed income.
"The team uses qualitative and quantitative approaches to identify sources of excess return at sector, issuer and security level."
