PIMCO, a leading global investment management firm, has filled in the final piece of its Australian retail offering with its inclusion on Colonial First State’s FirstChoice platform.
The PIMCO offering is the first global bond investment option to be made available on FirstChoice. The investment option, which has a strategy of seeking strong, consistent investment returns while moderating volatility, is available to investors from 11 June 2013.
Peter Dorrian, Head of Global Wealth Management, PIMCO Australia, says: “PIMCO’s inclusion is particularly important as FirstChoice is the pre-eminent platform in Australia. Our presence on the platform will greatly enhance PIMCO’s reach into the important retail market.”
PIMCO’s global bond offerings have an excellent track record in providing steady returns to investors while still offering a conservative approach by taking active steps to minimise volatility.
The PIMCO global bond offering on FirstChoice invests in government, corporate, mortgage and other fixed income securities, and can also invest in non-investment grade fixed interest securities and emerging markets. It is benchmarked against the Barclays Capital Global Aggregate Index hedged into Australian dollars.
PIMCO applies a wide range of diverse strategies that seek to enhance returns and reduce volatility, including duration analysis, credit analysis, relative value analysis, sector allocation and rotation and individual security selection.
The firm emphasises active decision making with a long-term focus and seeks to avoid extreme swings in duration or maturity with a view to creating a steady stream of returns. PIMCO concentrates on two sources of return when assessing potential investments: sector allocation and rotation and bottom up credit analysis of individual bonds and issuers.
PIMCO, which has operated in Australia since 1998, has about AUD35 billion of assets under management locally and USD2.04 trillion globally as of 31 March 2013.
FirstChoice’s AUD60 billion platform offers more than 100 investment options from more than 50 Australian and international investment managers, from specialist boutique managers to leading industry names.
