Kenanga Investors launches first SRI qualified high yield bond fund

KUALA LUMPUR: Kenanga Investors Bhd has launched a high yield bond fund to provide income and capital growth by investing in the Global High Yield ESG Bond Index Fund managed by Northern Trust Asset Management.

Kenanga said the fund, which was launched under the Kenanga Sustainability Series, tracked the risk and return characteristics of the ICE BofAML Global High Yield Index which is subject to certain environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) exclusions and ESG weightings.

Executive director/chief executive officer Ismitz Matthew De Alwis said the fund was the first sustainable and responsible investment (SRI) qualified high yield bond fund in the local market.

“It will offer investors a more robust portfolio stemming from ESG analytics which will consider factors such as carbon efficiency and quality of governance to mitigate risks or capture new opportunities aside from the standard quantitative and qualitative metrics during evaluation,” he said in a statement yesterday.

Going forward, De Alwis added that the performance of global high yield bonds would be determined by the financial health of issuers, and in that regard, credit fundamentals remain supportive of the asset class. With its sustainable investing approach, the fund represents the continuation of Kenanga Investors’ sustainable and socially-responsible investing roadmap following the introduction of the Kenanga Waqf Al-Ihsan Fund and the Kenanga Sustainability Series: Frontier Fund in 2021.

The high yield bond fund is the second fund launched under the Kenanga Sustainability Series, a suite of multi-asset class products rooted in sustainability considerations to advance long-term financial growth for investors and to generate social and financial value for surrounding communities.