Highly awarded Bentham Global Income Fund marks an emerald anniversary
Richard Quin
The Bentham Global Income Fund, one of the longest running global credit funds in Australia by multi award winning specialist global fixed interest and credit investment manager Bentham Asset Management, is marking 20 years of operation this week.
It is also one of a handful of Australian income funds to be run by the same portfolio manager – Bentham Principal and CIO, Richard Quin – for two decades. Quin established the fund 20 years ago at Credit Suisse Asset Management Australia (CSAM), before moving with it to establish Bentham in 2010.
The genesis of the Fund is Quin’s discussion with a friend who needed a retirement investment solution that could provide a reliable source of income for their mother, with a focus on protecting her underlying capital.
“We came up with the idea of a global income fund that delivered a monthly income, but also mitigated the downside. It ended up becoming a wholesale fund option for many people in the fixed interest market to get exposure to lots of different sectors of credit and fixed income,” Quin says.
“As the Bentham Global Income Fund celebrates its 20th anniversary, we would like to thank our investors for the trust they place in us to manage their investment. We have enjoyed the support of a wide range of investors, researchers and consultants over the years, and are very proud of the income and returns that the Fund has produced for them,” he adds.
The Bentham Global Income Fund invests across global fixed interest and credit markets in securities across the capital structure, including corporate and government bonds, senior secured and unsecured debt, subordinated or hybrid securities, loans, structured credit and asset-based securities.
“We analyse different types of credit and fixed income markets globally which gives us a huge opportunity set to achieve strong returns. It also provides diversity of return, which means less volatility for investors,” Quin says.
The fund invests in over 600 global issuers of credit securities which protects investors from concentration risk.
This unique approach means the Bentham Global Income Fund has outperformed its benchmark since inception*, delivering investors an annualised gross return of 6.95 per cent for the ~20-year period compared to benchmark** returns of 3.93 per cent.
“There are many advantages to investing in credit globally, rather than just locally. One is you can get higher returns. Two, there’s a lot more diversity globally, and you need diversity to create robust credit portfolios. And then lastly, one of the big benefits of investing globally is you invest alongside lots of different global investors, which means you have more liquidity.”
Quin also points out the many developments in the credit markets and the management of the Fund over the past two decades which have provided benefits to the end investor.
“One of the enhancements is we now buy options to help protect the portfolio. Another enhancement is we can also protect some credit exposures by buying credit derivatives.
“And more recently, we have very actively managed the portfolio’s interest rate exposure. We have the ability to go long or short interest rate risk. This means we can benefit when interest rates increase and also benefit when they decrease, making this capability a key differentiator in the current market,” he says.
As at the end of August 2023 the Fund had over A$2.8 billion in funds under management and has recently been added to the Colonial First State First Choice platform.
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