AXA WF US High Yield Bond’s main advantage is its differentiated and historically well-executed credit barbell approach, but we are keeping a cautious view of its investment team for now.
This team has regrouped following a significant leadership change in 2021, when longtime lead Carl “Pepper” Whitbeck passed away unexpectedly and his European high-yield counterpart, James Gledhill, left the firm. The strategy has since been manned by Michael Graham, with the help of a tight-knit but experienced group of four other US high-yield managers and two European high-yield managers. This reconfigured team has kept the strategies in good shape and has been broadly stable over the past three years. However, the parent company AXA Investment Management is in the process of being acquired by rival BNPP Asset Management, with the deal expected to close in the second quarter of 2025. BNPP has its own in-house team of portfolio managers and analysts running European and global high-yield portfolios, so the impact of the merger is for now difficult to anticipate.
Still, the strategy has remained true to its time-tested philosophy. The approach is based on capturing income from high-yield bonds while avoiding principal loss; it focuses primarily on bottom-up fundamental analysis. For years, this portfolio has distinguished itself from peers through a credit barbell approach: It typically emphasizes weaker credits (with up to 25% of assets routinely held in CCC rated bonds) while focusing on shorter maturities to limit risk. Its industry mix has tended to be fairly defensive, too, with the team avoiding cyclical or capital-intensive industries (like autos or energy) in favor of asset-light business models which it views as more predictable. Over the long term, this approach produced enviable results relative to peers and allowed the fund to efficiently cushion losses in down markets. The fund’s new managers have so far managed to replicate this pattern by avoiding defaults and limiting drawdowns in recent market dips, but we need more clarity on what this team’s resources will look after the merger with BNPP before we cement our long-term conviction in the strategy’s merits. |
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