The latest news around investment offerings, financial products and other services relevant to wealth advisors and their clients.

BlueBay Asset Management
The Royal Bank of Canada’s specialist fixed income manager, BlueBay Asset Management, has launched another strategy focused on ESG investment. 

The BlueBay Total Return Diversified Credit ESG Fund enables fixed income investors to gain an exposure to the firms “best ideas” through an ESG lens across global high yield, bank loans, financial capital bonds, structured credit, convertible bonds, emerging markets and developed market investment grade.

The new Luxembourg SIF fund, which is categorised under Article 8 of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), will focus on using BlueBay’s proprietary ESG research to identify and avoid investments with excessive ESG risks. The strategy will also focus on progressing the lower carbon agenda by avoiding companies deriving revenues from oil sands and arctic drilling, and limit exposure to companies with revenues derived from thermal coal or fossil fuel exploration and production. It will also exclude sovereigns that have not ratified the Paris Agreement. 

In addition, controversial weapons, a standard exclusion for all BlueBay funds, and tobacco will not be included, BlueBay said in a statement. 

The fund will be managed by BlueBay’s head of multi-asset credit, Raphael Robelin and senior portfolio manager, Blair Reid, supported by portfolio manager, Maria Satizabal.

This fund adds to BlueBay’s suite of ESG-focused products, including its Impact-Aligned Bond Fund, Investment Grade ESG Bond Fund, and Absolute Return ESG Bond Fund, which were all launched earlier in 2021.

GMG
GMG Asset Management, part of Geneva Management Group, and RE Capital, have launched a real estate feeder fund to manage a large-scale residential evelopment project in the heart of Lisbon. 

GMG has been appointed as the fund’s investment manager, it said in a statement earlier this week. The group already oversees investments in jurisdictions including Switzerland, UK, Portugal and Germany.

The fund is domiciled in Luxembourg. GMG said it serves as a precedent for future opportunities which can replicate the fund’s efficient structure.

The project is managed in Portugal by Reward Properties, a residential real estate developer, set up as a joint venture between RE Capital and Neworld, a European-domiciled property development company.

The Geneva Management Group is an asset manager and multi-family office established in 2000. In 2019, GMG Institutional Asset Management obtained its FINMA licence as manager of collective assets, allowing it to provide services to Swiss institutions and pension funds. As of 2021, its licence was expanded to international private equity investments. GMG has offices in Geneva, Zurich, Dubai, Johannesburg, and Mauritius.

RE Capital, which focuses on real estate, operates from London, Lisbon and Geneva. The company managed €1 billion ($1.12 billion) of real estate assets.