Big name family business lines up corp hybrids fund

Dan Alderson

Deputy editor

Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management (Edram) plans to launch a corporate hybrid fund and has hired Alex Eventon to lead the effort.

Eventon, who brings 18 years of experience managing credit and rates portfolios, will join the Geneva headquartered private bank’s fixed income asset management business as head of investment grade and hybrid corporate debt. Most recently, he was co-founder and portfolio manager of Resco Asset Management since late 2017.

Based firstly in Geneva and then from next year in Paris, Eventon will work closely with Marc Lacraz, a fund manager and investment grade credit analyst in Geneva who has been at the firm for over 13 years.

The new hybrids strategy, which Edram intends to become a flagship in the segment, will invest in the debt of companies based in any geography. It will begin fundraising in the fourth quarter and will complement Edram’s four other pillars of fixed income investment — convertibles, high yield, financials and emerging markets.

Eventon: will again team up with Alain Krief

In times of wide corporate spreads or thin issuance the strategy could employ a bucket of up to 15% subordinated financial debt.

Corporate hybrid bonds have been gaining popularity in recent times despite tightening valuations, with borrower and investor appetite for the asset class taking the universe to around €200 billion. Investors have been drawn to the high yield-like return of paper from issuers with investment grade default risk, whose performance they perceive to be sensitive to equity markets with low duration.

Eventon will report to Alain Krief, head of fixed income. The pair previously worked together for three years at Oddo BHF Asset Management, where Krief was global head of fixed income from 2012 until joining Edram in July 2019. Eventon was head of unconstrained fixed income at that firm from mid-2013 to mid-2016.

Before Resco, Eventon’s other jobs included working at Lombard Odier in Geneva. He began his career in portfolio management at FFTW in November 2003 based in London, becoming a senior PM in the firm’s Paris office for three years from November 2007 after it rebranded as BNP Paribas Asset Management.

Edram’s fixed income group manages some €10 billion of assets. As of 30 June, the firm oversees around CHF 179 billion (€163 billion) in total.

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October 2021 | Issue 239

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