Janus Henderson Horizon Euro Corporate Bond benefits from an experienced management team, the depth and quality of its credit research analysts, and a well-defined collegial approach, which has resulted in strong long-term performance against peers.
The strategy is managed by experienced credit managers Tim Winstone and Tom Ross. Ross became a named manager in August 2015 and had worked closely with former comanagers Chris Bullock and Stephen Thariyan for almost a decade on various mandates, including this strategy, since its 2009 inception. Bullock departed at the end of 2015, and Thariyan, who was more involved in the top-down decisions, left the firm in March 2018 after the Janus-Henderson merger. Winstone joined Henderson in November 2015 and is responsible for euro investment-grade and high-yield credit. He was named a co-portfolio manager here in February 2017.
The approach is bottom-up, with a focus on fundamental credit analysis. Idea generation and trade recommendations are provided by the experienced 20-member Janus Henderson credit analyst team, which contains sector specialists. The managers are pragmatic in moving the top-down positioning in response to the changing macro environment. Somewhat different from many peers, they also use credit derivatives as an alpha source to meet the aim of beating the iBoxx EUR Corporates Index. Since the current managers took over in 2015 and through to October 2023, absolute and risk-adjusted performance for the largest share class (G2 EUR) has been ahead of its EUR corporate bond peers and its Morningstar Eurozone Corporate Bond GR EUR Index category benchmark. The high-conviction approach could lead to spans of underperformance, such as in 2015 when the overweighting in BBB rated and U.S.-dollar-denominated bonds weighed on returns. During a very difficult 2022, the strategy declined by 15.5%, underperforming peers by 2.1% and the category index by 1.1%. Most underperformance came in the fourth quarter when its underweight risk stance held it back in the bear market rally toward year-end. At the beginning of the year, an overweight risk allocation, as well as allocations to financials, real estate, and sovereigns also detracted. Despite that, we believe the investment process is well-structured and consistent and should ensure that the strategy meets its performance objective over the long run. A positive development on the cost side is that in July 2019 the previous performance fee was removed. |
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