Rathbone Strategic Bond Fund

We buy bonds issued by companies, governments and non-governmental organisations all over the world. The objective of our fund is to deliver a greater total return than the IA Sterling Strategic Bond sector, after fees, over any rolling five-year period. We aim to deliver this return with a lower volatility than the IA Sterling Strategic Bond sector. There is no guarantee that this investment objective will be achieved over five years, or any other time period. We use the IA sector as a target for our fund’s return because we aim to achieve a better return than the average of funds that are similar to ours. We aim to limit the amount of volatility risk our fund can take because we want our investors to understand the risk they are taking compared to funds similar to ours. You can find our fund’s full objective and investment policy in our Key Investor Information Document (KIID).

When picking corporate bonds, there are three assessments we make. First, we look at the economic environment to determine which industries we want to own and the duration, or sensitivity to interest rate changes, of our investments. Then we use the Four Cs Plus approach to evaluate creditworthiness. We assess:  

• Character: Whether a company's managers have integrity and competence
• Capacity: Ensuring a company isn't over-borrowing and has the cash to pay its debts
• Collateral: Are there assets backing the loan, which reduces the risk of a loan?
• Covenants: These loan agreements set out the terms of the bond and restrictions on the company
• The Plus: We think differently to the market; sometimes contrarian, sometimes sceptical of orthodox thinking, but always opinionated