Evli has launched the Evli Nordic 2025 Target Maturity Fund, a new fund that invests in a wide variety of sectors of Nordic companies’ issues, maturing in 2025, and with an annualized return target of approximately 3%*. The fundraising of Evli Nordic 2025 Target Maturity Fund started on February 2, 2021 and will close on March 19, 2021. This fund will be available for investors in Finland, Sweden, France, Spain, Italy and Germany.
Evli Nordic 2025 Target Maturity Fund will be managed by Juhamatti Pukka, Head of Fixed Income and Jani Kurppa, Senior Portfolio Manager at Evli Fund Management Company Ltd. The average portfolio rating is expected to be BB, with 20% IG and 80% HY issues**, plus a percentage of non-rated credit issues that provide extra return to the portfolio. The fund has also a target return of approximately 3%* per year.
“This objective is based on two main factors. First, we noticed unrated Nordic bonds provide an additional return between 100-200 bp compared to European BB corporate bonds. Secondly, Nordic corporate bonds have recovered more slowly than the rest of Europe, offering a value-generating gap to the portfolio”, explains Jani Kurppa.
In the same way as the Evli Target Nordic Bond 2023 fund that was launched in 2019, this fund gives investors the advantages of the Nordic market. The Nordics are a large market counting 490 issuers with an accumulated volume of 250 Bn euros, of which 54% do not have a credit rating.
“Nordic countries present stable and solid economies that have responded better to the effects of Covid-19 than the rest of Europe. In addition, Nordic companies show a high qualification in ESG criteria and are often pioneers in ESG implementation within business management”, underlines Juhamatti Pukka.
Evli Nordic 2025 Target Maturity Fund is actively managed, with ESG integrated. The fund excludes manufactures of weapons, fossil fuels and thermal coal, alcohol, tobacco, adult entertainment, and gambling. ESG criteria is also integrated into the analysis of corporate debt and a quarterly ESG report is published, with metrics resulting from the monitoring of these criteria, both at the environmental, social, corporate governance, and reputation levels. Read more about Evli Nordic 2025 Target Maturity Fund
See also: Evli Nordic 2025 Target Maturity Fund website
Additional information:
Juhamatti Pukka, Head of Fixed Income, Evli Fund Management Company Ltd, tel. +358 9 4766 9486, juhamatti.pukka@evli.com
Jani Kurppa, Senior Portfolio Manager, Evli Fund Management Company Ltd, tel. +358 9 4766 9146, jani.kurppa@evli.com
* Yearly return, net of fees. NB this does not constitute neither a promised return nor a commitment by Evli to achieve such returns. The Fund may incur the risk of loss of capital, as well as credit risk and the risk of investing in high-yield bonds.
** Investment Grade (IG) bonds typically have a lower risk and a higher credit rating (AAA-BBB), High Yield (HY) bonds typically a higher risk and a lower credit rating (BB-D). AAA is highest on the rating scale used by major rating agencies and D lowest.
