Teiki Benveniste
The Ares Global Credit Income Fund (the “Fund”) has received a ‘Recommended’ rating from investment research provider, Lonsec. The Fund was awarded the same rating from Zenith Investment Partners in 2021.
The Fund is managed by Ares Australia Management, a strategic joint venture between Ares Management Corporation (“Ares”), a leading global alternative investment manager, and the Australian-based Fidante Partners, a global investment management and distribution business.
The Fund aims to provide investors attractive current income through stable monthly distributions while providing downside protection across market cycles. Based on the market environment and relative value opportunities, the Fund is dynamically invested across a diversified portfolio of carefully selected corporate and structured credit assets, including U.S. and European corporate bonds, bank loans and alternative credit securities. The Fund seeks to avoid riskier asset classes, such as equities, and to minimise exposure to the more stressed segments of the credit market.
Supporting the rating, Lonsec cited Ares’ 20+ years of experience managing liquid and private credit strategies, its collaborative, integrated and highly resourced Global Liquid Credit and Alternative Credit teams of 80+ investment professionals and its strong fundamental credit process complemented by sophisticated quantitative tools.
Since its inception on 1 May 2020, the Fund has returned 8.65% per annum after fees. Its internal objective is to outperform the Bloomberg Ausbond Bank Bill Index by 3% to 4% (gross of fees) over a three-year period.
While the traditional fixed income markets continue to be challenged, Head of Ares Australia Management, Teiki Benveniste, remains constructive on the 2022 outlook for the Fund’s primary asset classes in scope. Benveniste noted “In the current environment, traditional fixed income is challenged by negative real yields, low current income generation and high levels of duration, making negative returns and bouts of volatility increasingly likely amid rising inflation concerns. We believe certain higher beta, floating rate instruments, specifically bank loans and CLO debt securities, screen attractive from a relative value perspective as they provide high levels of current income and low duration of less than one year.”
Benveniste further commented “Looking ahead to 2022, we expect robust retail and institutional demand, strong fundamentals and improving credit metrics, low default expectations and supportive capital markets to continue to be tailwinds for bank loans and CLO debt securities.”