Anfield Universal Fixed Income Fund
Investment Objective
The Anfield universal fixed income fund seeks current income. The fund is not managed relative to an index and has broad flexibility to allocate its assets across different types of securities and sectors of the fixed income markets.
Investment Strategy
The Fund normally invests at least 80% of its net assets, including any borrowings for investment purposes, in a diversified portfolio of fixed income instruments. The Fund is not managed relative to an index and has broad flexibility to allocate its assets across different types of securities and sectors of the fixed income markets. The principal investments of the Fund include corporate bonds, U.S. government and agency securities, master-limited partnerships (“MLPs”) (tied to energy-related commodities), preferred securities, private debt, foreign sovereign bonds, convertible securities, bank loans, mortgage-backed securities, and cash equivalent instruments. To a lesser extent, the Fund may invest in dividend-paying common stocks. The Fund may invest in structured products including mortgage-related and other asset-backed securities including residential mortgage-backed securities, commercial mortgage-backed securities, asset-backed securities and collateralized loan obligations (“CLOs”).
The Fund may invest in fixed income instruments with fixed or adjustable (floating) rates. The Fund does not seek to maintain any particular weighted average maturity or duration, and may invest in fixed income instruments of any maturity or duration. The Fund may invest in both investment grade and below investment grade (often referred to as “high yield” or “junk” bonds) securities, subject to a maximum of up to 50% of the Fund’s assets in below investment grade securities. The Fund will typically invest a substantial portion of the Fund’s investments in securities of issuers with a range of credit ratings that have stable or improving fundamentals. Securities of these issuers include secured bank loans and below investment grade bonds. The Fund may also engage in short sales when it believes a security is overvalued in the market. The Fund may invest without limit in U.S. and non-U.S. dollar-denominated securities of U.S. and foreign issuers, including issuers located in emerging market countries.
The Fund’s investment process includes both a top-down macroeconomic analysis and a bottom-up analysis of individual securities. In its evaluation of a potential investment, the Fund conducts a fundamental analysis of the individual issuer, reviews the valuation of the security and the relative valuations of similar securities, and analyzes the supply and demand for the security in the market. The Fund seeks to identify companies in stable and growing sectors of the economy that generate sufficient revenue to meet their debt obligations. The Fund will sell a portfolio holding when the security no longer meets its investment criteria or when a more attractive investment is available.
The Fund may engage in active and frequent trading. The Fund may also engage in securities lending to generate income.
Philosophy
- Long-term secular orientation
- Value-driven with an income focus
- Benchmark, asset class and geography agnostic
- Risk centric, downside risk management approach to investing
Investment Process
- Synthesis of top-down macro orientation with bottoms up security selection
– Higher quality company bias
– Price adjusted quality bias - Secular and industry weightings are a result, not the governor of our individual security selection
- Sector and asset class weightings are the result of our bottoms up analysis
- Moderate and incremental approach to portfolio turnover