Jupiter Asset Management has added two new credit analysts, including one on the emerging market debt side, to its team over the summer as part of its push to broaden its fixed income business.
The first hire, Alejandro Di Bernardo, is joining from Deutsche Asset Management in New York as an emerging market debt analyst and will primarily focus on Latin America.
Di Bernardo will assist Alejandro Arevalo, who runs Jupiter’s Global Emerging Markets Corporate Bond fund and Global Emerging Markets Short Duration Bond fund, both Sicav vehicles.
Adrian Lowcock head of personal investing at Willis Owen said Di Bernardo’s hire gels with Jupiter’s push to diversify its product base.
“There’s never any harm in strengthening your team but you need specialists in the bond space in areas like emerging market debt,” he said. “You can’t just do it yourself, you need somebody to really focus in on that area and it’s a full time job to analyse that.”
Jupiter’s regional credit expertise
Reza Karim had been the sole analyst specialising in EM debt on the nine-strong fixed income team, according to Jupiter’s website.
Katharine Dryer, head of investments, fixed income and multi-asset, said Jupiter wanted to improve regional credit expertise at the firm.
Dyer said fundamental credit research was at the heart of their fixed income approach and we are delighted to be able to add two new analysts of such high calibre to the team,” she said. “The ongoing development of our regional credit expertise is a key step in Jupiter’s initiative to strengthen and broaden the capabilities we offer clients in fixed income.”
Lowcock said the hire appeared to be part of a long-term strategy, given sentiment towards emerging market debt currently.
“Emerging markets are a little bit out of favour at the moment with fears of a trade war, a stronger US dollar and interest rates rising in the west, albeit slowly. But longer-term, emerging markets are growing faster, so emerging market debt will therefore become a bigger, more important asset class.”
Unconstrained bond team expands
Joel Ojdana has also joined Jupiter as a credit analyst after three years at Balyasny Asset Management and Seaport. Prior to that he worked in investment banking for seven years at firms including Mizuho Securities and BNP Paribas.
Ojdana will focus on US ideas for the unconstrained bond strategy led by Ariel Bezalel (pictured), head of strategy. He will work alongside fellow analyst Charlie Spelina, who joined last October, and the broader fixed income team to generate
Bezalel’s Dynamic Bond fund has made headlines for being the root cause of Jupiter’s net outflows over the first half of the year.
The Sicav fund, which has leaked over £2bn in 2018 so far, has pushed Jupiter’s total assets down 4% to £48.2bn.
Lowcock said he is not overly concerned about redemptions from Bezalel’s Dynamic Bond fund, which he attributed to institutional investors making short-term allocation calls.
“He is quite a flexible manager but to get it right even in the medium term you have to be in an position that’s not too comfortable in the short term,” he said.
