PIMCO GIS Euro Income Bond E EUR Acc |
Morningstar's Take
|08/02/2024by Elbie Louw
| Despite impressive resources and a well-structured process, Pimco GIS Euro Income Bond's management team shoulders a hefty workload and is still settling in. We retain our People and Process Pillar ratings of Average and Above Average, respectively. In December 2022, Eve Tournier, who had led this strategy for roughly a decade, left Pimco unexpectedly and then-backup manager Alfred Murata took over. Murata, who has been named on this strategy as a comanager since 2017 and boasts more than two decades of investment experience, manages income-oriented, multisector credit, and securitized strategies. He is supported here by Nidhi Nakra, who was formally added to the manager roster in 2021 after having assisted the team with trading and relative value analysis for several years, and experienced credit managers Charles Watford and Regina Borromeo, who joined the crew in December 2022. While Murata is ultimately responsible for performance here, the team collectively decides on positions and sizing. It is encouraging to see that turnover in the European credit team has cooled after the 2021 closure of Pimco's Munich office led to the departures of three experienced analysts and three portfolio managers. In the intervening two years, Pimco hired experienced replacements and the European credit analyst team grew from nine to 11 analysts. The depth and breadth of the additional resources at Murata's disposal remain impressive, including more than 40 corporate credit portfolio managers and traders and more than 80 credit analysts globally, in addition to Pimco's plethora of quant and macro researchers. Pimco GIS Euro Income Bond's flexible mandate and successful implementation continue to stand out from the crowd. The fund's income philosophy typically results in a credit-heavy portfolio invested across a combination of investment-grade and high-yield corporates (which can reach up to 50% of assets, according to the strategy's guidelines), securitized assets, and developed- and emerging-markets sovereign debt. Sector allocation and security selection are expected to drive the bulk of the fund's added value, with duration, yield-curve positioning, and a small currency overlay playing a secondary role. Since Murata initially joined as comanager (November 2017 through December 2023), the annualized return of the strategy's institutional share class stayed ahead of its benchmark, the Bloomberg Euro Aggregate 1-10 Year Index. While this process has delivered on the strategy objective, we are still rebuilding confidence in the management team. |
We are still building conviction in the leadership team.To find out how Morningstar rates a fund click here.
| Morningstar Pillars | |
| People | Average |
| Parent | Above Average |
| Process | Above Average |
Morningstar Medalist RatingMorningstar assigns the Medalist Rating to funds that are qualitatively and quantitatively assessed through manager research and algorithmic processes. The assessment turns on three key “pillars” – People, Process, and Parent – that yield an estimate of how well a fund will perform before fees but after adjusting for risk.
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