Jussi Hyyppä (M.Sc. (Econ.)) has been appointed Evli's portfolio manager responsible for loan strategies as of September 1, 2020. Hyyppä joined Evli from Nordea, where he has been active in the debt capital markets since 1997. Prior to joining Evli, he worked as Managing Director in the Leveraged Syndicate unit. Hyyppä’s first order of business will be to start building Evli's new leveraged loans asset class.
The addition of leveraged loans will expand and complement Evli's current fund offering, which already prominently features high yield bonds, among others. “Leveraged loans and high yield bonds complement each other in the sense that they can both be used to finance similar or even identical projects, such as M&A,” says Jussi Hyyppä. “It is also often the case that the funding used by the same high yield issuer changes from leveraged loans to high yield bonds or vice versa during the equity investor’s ownership period, with the great advantage that the investor has the opportunity to invest in both instruments if the issuer and sector are familiar and preferred,” Hyyppä continues.
Jussi Hyyppä
The most significant advantage of leveraged loans funds is that they provide for institutions, which do not have their own expert resources and for individual retail investors, access to markets previously dominated by banks and institutional investors. Until now, leveraged loans have been out of reach for small investors due to the relatively high minimum investment amounts required.
Evli's Chief Investment Officer Mikael Lundström is pleased with the addition of the upcoming leveraged loans fund. “We were one of the first banks in the European high yield bond market and now we are among the first to offer access to leveraged loans in the Nordic countries. For many years, we have been planning to introduce a product for clients in the form of a fund that would co-exist alongside bonds. Now this new asset class is finally coming true,” Lundström comments.
Evli's corporate bond funds are managed by a fixed-income team with a successful history of more than 20 years in the European fixed income market and long, local expertise in the Nordic corporate bond market, which includes unrated corporate bonds. The leveraged loans fund significantly expands Evli's product range, enabling Evli to offer clients a wider product portfolio and better diversification.
More information:
Mikael Lundström, Chief Investment Officer, Evli Fund Management Company Ltd, tel. +358 9 4766 9321, mikael.lundstrom@evli.com
Jussi Hyyppä, Head of Loan Strategies, Evli Fund Management Company Ltd, tel. + 358 44 242 9596, jussi.hyyppa@evli.com
