BlackRock Corporate Bond
This predominantly investment grade corporate bond fund combines the benefits of an experienced lead decision maker, Ben Edwards, with BlackRock's vast resources. These include specialist fixed income analysts, quantitative risk tools and a huge 24-hour global trading platform.
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Ben Edwards, CFA, is a Managing Director and Portfolio Manager in the Sterling Bond Portfolio team within BlackRock's Global Fixed Income Group. He leads the BlackRock Corporate Bond Fund and co-manages the BlackRock Sterling Strategic Bond Fund. Before joining BlackRock in 2010, Ben worked at Legal and General Investment Management from 2003 to 2009 as a portfolio manager for sterling corporate bond portfolios. He began his career as an Analyst at M&G in 2002. Ben earned a Business degree from Queensland University of Technology in 2000 and post-graduate qualifications in Finance from the Financial Services Institute of Australia in 2002. He is also a CFA charterholder.
Ben Edwards, CFA, is a Managing Director and Portfolio Manager in the Sterling Bond Portfolio team within BlackRock's Global Fixed Income Group. He leads the BlackRock Corporate Bond Fund and co-manages the BlackRock Sterling Strategic Bond Fund. Before joining BlackRock in 2010, Ben worked at Legal and General Investment Management from 2003 to 2009 as a portfolio manager for sterling corporate bond portfolios. He began his career as an Analyst at M&G in 2002. Ben earned a Business degree from Queensland University of Technology in 2000 and post-graduate qualifications in Finance from the Financial Services Institute of Australia in 2002. He is also a CFA charterholder.
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Company Description
A part of the US-based BlackRock Group, BlackRock manages assets across equity, fixed income, cash management, alternative investment and real estate strategies. It provides this comprehensive range of products across numerous continents with more than 130 investment teams in 30 countries.
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Quote from the Fund Manager
Hubris is the enemy of fund managers; we can’t predict the future better than anyone else. We build sensible portfolios which work whichever way the wind happens to be blowing.
Ben Edwards
Lead Manager
Investment process
The process behind the BlackRock Corporate Bond fund combines macroeconomic views on the wider economy with fundamental research on individual companies and the various bonds they may offer. The manager has access to BlackRock's huge resource of fixed income specialists in order to uncover the best ideas.
While the majority of bonds will be investment grade with relatively high credit ratings (meaning the company is less likely to default on the loan), this is a flexible fund and has the ability to source other ideas from asset-backed securities, high yield and unrated bonds and those denominated in euros and US dollars (although these will be hedged back to sterling). Once a company is identified as a potential investment, further work is undertaken to determine which of its bonds offers the best value.
Risk
This fund has support from BlackRock's sophisticated risk analytics tools, which are being continuously updated and refined. Interest rate exposure is typically less than the benchmark and, notably, the fund has been lower-risk during Ben’s tenure, when compared to its peers in the Sterling Corporate Bond sector.
ESG
ESG - Integrated
Blackrock’s highly resourced team has a consistent and sophisticated ESG analysis system built into the investment process. It has specific risk inputs performed by analysts, and the output is highlighted as a prominent section of the stock research template. There is a dedicated fixed income team for additional analysis relating to this space. This analysis is populated from a combination of internal work, looking through financial statements for ESG issues and the risk of specific events. This is used in conjunction with external data to flag past concerns and put a numeric score on the ESG exposures of a company. These scores are used as an input to the investment decision process, rather than to exclude certain stocks, and it is up to Ben which risks he wishes to take when building the portfolio.
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