
Nomura Global Dynamic Bond
Nomura Global Dynamic is an unconstrained strategic bond fund, with a focus on total returns. It is managed by the charismatic Richard ‘Dickie’ Hodges, who blends two approaches when building his portfolio. First, he studies the state of the global economy and identifies which sectors and investment themes look most attractive. He then undertakes fundamental analysis, to populate his preferred areas with ideas. Dickie invests in the entire range of bond sectors including government bonds, corporate bonds, emerging market bonds and inflation-linked bonds. He can also use a variety of derivatives for dynamic portfolio construction and risk management.
Our Opinion
Fund Manager
Fund Manager

Dickie Hodges, Lead Manager Richard 'Dickie' Hodges has 36 years of investment experience and has been with Nomura since 2014.
Fund Performance
Risk
Company Description
Quote from the Fund Manager
I am paid to take risk and earn attractive returns for my investors. But I absolutely refuse to do so without the flexibility to hedge against the very real dangers that fixed income investors face.

Dickie Hodges
Lead Manager
Investment process
Dickie takes an unconstrained approach. He will utilise the full range of bond and derivative securities available to him to make a portfolio of diverse investment strategies. The goal is to deliver a yield well in excess of cash, but with capital growth too. He aims to do this whilst generating less volatility than bond indices.
Step one of the process is to build a medium-term view of the world. Dickie will want to understand the broad interest rate cycle and what the economic and corporate fundamentals are saying about the state of the world. Step two is to find any short-term opportunities that may exist. This step is designed to highlight idiosyncrasies in markets, including identifying areas of risk. This will throw up speculative positions in valuations, as well as seeing what catalysts could show signs of change. Step three is to identify the best securities to exploit such opportunities, judged on their risk and reward trade off.
Risk
Risk measures are built into the portfolio management and construction throughout the process, ensuring that the Nomura Global Dynamic fund is not overly exposed to any one factor. There is an independent risk management team that will monitor the portfolio daily and report back any issues or exposure that has been taken, allowing Dickie to have a constant idea of what risk he has taken in the fund already, and where he can mitigate this if necessary. There is a maximum allowance of 20% cash, 30% emerging market debt, 20% convertible bonds and 10% foreign exchange. Dickie cannot hold direct equities in the portfolio but can use put options to take similar exposure if he sees fit.
ESG
ESG - Limited
There are no ESG-specific criteria applied to the fund and the portfolio manager has absolute discretion to invest in securities that either have poor ESG ratings or fall outside the analysts’ ESG coverage, which is in keeping with the unconstrained nature of the strategy. The global credit analysts do assign ESG ratings to the companies in their coverage, which have the ability to influence credit selection, but Nomura would not describe ESG inputs as material to the security selection process.