By ROBERT HARLEY 10/12/2008
These two funds are essentially both quality corporate bond funds. The Corporate Bond Fund is a more traditional plain vanilla corporate bond fund, offering investors a more diversified exposure to the universe with stricter mandate controls on exposure to gilts, high yield and the management of interest rate sensitivity relative to reference benchmarks. The Strategic Bond Fund effectively provides the manager with more opportunity to express these views, the portfolio will also tend to be more focused, reflecting his best ideas.
Richard Woolnough, the named manager, has a track record of top quartile peer group returns at M&G and at his previous employer, Old Mutual. More recently he successfully steered his funds through the current credit crisis, protecting investors capital against the volatility in the credit markets. Both funds are awarded 3 stars.