UBS shuts Absolute Return Bond fund after 32% losses
Asset managment firm scraps ‘absolute return’ fund that lost 32.1 per cent since launching seven years ago.
UBS Global Asset Management has closed its £15.1m Absolute Return Bond fund, which failed to produce reliable absolute returns.
The fund had an ‘absolute return’ investment objective of seeking “to generate a positive return regardless of market conditions through a diversified global bond portfolio”.
But performance data shows that it failed to meet those objectives overall in its seven years in operation. From the point it launched in April 2005 it lost 32.1 per cent.
The average performance of funds in its IMA Global Bond sector was a gain of 56.2 per cent and the UBS fund’s performance ranked bottom in the sector over that timescale, according to FE Analytics data to June 22.
The fund was at the time of closure on Monday (July 2) being managed by Jonathan Gregory, the head of global aggregate and global corporate bonds who joined UBS in 2010.
He will continue to fulfil his other portfolio management responsibilities.
At the end of May, the fund had no exposure to high yield, 34.5 per cent in corporates and 34.8 per cent in government agency debt with the remainder split between cash and mortgage and asset backed securities.