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Sun Life Global Investments sees bright outlook for fixed income

Volatile markets create increased uncertainty for many investors. For others, however, this volatility is an opportunity – unlocking attractive entry points that will generate value over the long term. This is the investment landscape facing savvy investors in fixed income this year. After a rough 2022, new opportunities are emerging both in Canada and globally for government, corporate, and emerging market bonds. In a recent interview with Wealth Professional, portfolio manager Christine Tan of Sun Life Global investments explored the new environment for bonds and how Sun Life Global Investments decides where to invest. “Fixed income was sleeping for more than a decade because yields were so

low,” Tan says. “But today, after a very rapid increase in interest rates, we're in a sweet spot for fixed income. We have yields that are quite attractive.” While most Canadian investors tend to focus on domestic government bonds, Tan says Sun Life Global Investments also casts its net a lot wider for opportunities – seeking attractive yields in higher-yield emerging-market government bonds and less-explored private fixed-income markets. There’s more risk in these investments, but Tan says active management and a sophisticated assessment of duration, credit quality, interest rates, currency fluctuations, and a host of other metrics help mitigate risk while identifying opportunities for return. Sun Life Global Investments accesses active management for these differentiated fixed-income asset classes by choosing who we feel are the best sub-advisors in each region and market.

Every investor is different. Some will prefer more risk in the hope of higher returns, while others who may be looking to preserve their assets will want less risk and more certainty. Tan says Sun Life Global Investments’ portfolios are designed to meet the diverse range of investors’ needs. “For fixed-income investors, we have three types of funds or pools,” Tan explains. “The most differentiated is the Sun Life Wellington Opportunistic Fixed Income Private Pool. This is a portfolio that is a go-anywhere, own-anything portfolio designed to provide risk-adjusted returns through the economic cycle.” Tan says it’s not tied to domestic duration and credit, and instead can access a variety of assets, including global bonds, government bonds, global corporate bonds, and global inflation-linked bonds, and can even own bank loans. Tan says that the portfolio’s team considers multiple drivers of return that fall into three main categories. There’s strategic asset allocation, which involves longer-term decisions about variables such as the direction of interest rates. Second is a market-neutral strategy seeking relative value opportunities, in which they might own a higher-yielding currency and fund it against a lower-yielding currency. The third is more tactical, and involves shorter-term drivers like an assessment of inflation.

A second key fund at Sun Life Global Investments is the Sun Life Core Advantage Credit Private Pool. This is a credit-intensive portfolio, Tan says. It is investment-grade, and predominantly Canadian fixed income. “They invest in Canadian government bonds, provincials, and corporates,” she explains. “There is more credit exposure and more corporate exposure, but the key differentiator is a 10 percent allocation to private fixed income. “Private fixed income is interesting because you don't have to mark the market daily – it's literally a piece of paper issued by the company – so your duration is short, it gets refinanced more regularly, [but] you have to do a lot more credit work.” This illiquidity means it pays a higher yield, she adds. “To give you a flavor of

what the portfolio looks like, that private fixed-income piece currently has a duration of about one and a half years, and pays a yield of just over seven percent. So it's not a big allocation, but it's a differentiator.” The third fund is the Sun Life MFS Canadian Bond Fund. This is an actively managed Canadian bond fund with a triple B or better rating at the overall portfolio level. Tan says this fixed-income team benefits from being able to collaborate with one of the biggest global equity research teams in the world. This gives the team access to a suite of risk models that goes beyond what a bond manager might normally use to assess a company’s balance sheet and credit outlook. These three funds provide a brief but insightful snapshot of Sun Life Global Investments’ approach to fixed-income investing. Asked to comment on her outlook for the year ahead, Tan says the current investment landscape remains challenging. “The economic data is very noisy, and that’s to be expected when you're getting toward a transition point in the economic cycle,” Tan says. “However, the hard economic data is coming in stronger than we would have expected after the amount of tightening we've seen from the central banks.” That’s great for growth, employment, wages, and other important metrics, Tan says. But it creates ongoing uncertainty around inflation, and that will continue to make the investment landscape quite challenging.

Spotlight

In their approach to fixed-income investments, Sun Life Global Investments’ multi-asset solutions (MAS) team takes a big-picture approach that weighs the pros and cons of different asset classes around the world. After identifying a potential opportunity in a region or index, they will look for a portfolio management team that can deliver strong risk-adjusted returns on the strategy. “Once we've defined an asset class that can benefit from active management, we do a scan of all the potential managers around the world,” Tan says. “Then our research team will assess both qualitative and quantitative factors – looking at the structure of the team, whether it’s been together for a long time, their strategy, and their approach to the investment process.” Then, Tan adds, Sun Life Global Investments’ MAS team will assess more quantitative factors, like strong risk-adjusted returns that can be repeated in the future. Finally, there is a last phase of extensive due diligence on each of the shortlisted managers before one is selected. Selected managers continue to be under close watch via quarterly monitoring and other ongoing assessments.

Sun Life Global Investments offers Canadians a diverse lineup of mutual funds, portfolio solutions and guaranteed investments, empowering them to pursue their financial goals at every life stage. We bring together the strength of one of Canada’s most trusted names in financial services with some of the best asset managers from around the world to deliver a truly global investment platform.

Company Profile

$53 billion AUM

Value of Sun Life Global Investments

$1.33 trillion

Value of Sun Life’s global AUM

We work with institutional managers to offer mandates not available elsewhere in Canada to retail investors

PROPORTION OF WOMEN AMONG FUNDSERV EMPLOYEES

1865

YEAR SUN LIFE WAS FOUNDED

Bio

Spotlight

Milestones

Media

Accolades

Company Profile

Years of Experience

Tenure IN current position

2017 - Present

Fast Facts

Joined Sun Life Global Investments in 2018 Earned MBA from Schulich School of Business

Christine Tan

Portfolio manager at SLGI Asset Management Inc.

Christine Tan, portfolio manager at Sun Life Global Investments, discusses the opportunities for bonds in Canada and abroad

Read on

“After a very rapid increase in interest rates, we're in a sweet spot for fixed income. We have yields that are quite attractive”

Christine Tan, Sun Life Global investments

IN Partnership with

2010

2012

2015

2018

2020

2022

2010

Sun Life Global Investments is founded. Hires MFS Investment Management to sub-advise a number of mandates. The inaugural fund family also includes four Milestone funds, Sun Life’s brand of target-date funds.

2012

Sun Life Assurance Company launches Sun Life GIFs. A suite of segregated fund contracts offering the benefits of protection and potential for investment growth.

2015

Acquires Excel Funds Management Inc. and Excel Investment Counsel Inc. Launches Sun Life Tactical ETF Portfolios. Risk-managed portfolios offering exposure to ETFs in a convenient mutual fund structure – for fee sensitive investors.

2018

Launches Sun Life Private Investment Pools. Five uniquely engineered and competitively priced solutions, built for the future.

2020

Launches its first sustainable mandate: Sun Life KBI Sustainable Infrastructure Private Pool.

2022

Milestones

Choosing a manager

Investment choices

Published 04 September 2023

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Favourite investing quote

“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it. He who doesn’t, pays it”

– attrib. to Albert Einstein

“Private fixed income is interesting because you don't have to mark the market daily”

Christine Tan, Sun Life Global investments

Scale = pricing power & broad global reach

PROPORTION OF WOMEN AMONG FUNDSERV EMPLOYEES

Insurance roots = strong risk-management culture

PROPORTION OF WOMEN AMONG FUNDSERV EMPLOYEES

Views expressed regarding a particular company, security, industry, or market sector should not be considered an indication of trading intent of any mutual funds managed by SLGI Asset Management Inc. These views are subject to change and are not to be considered as investment advice nor should they be considered a recommendation to buy or sell. SLGI Asset Management Inc. is the investment manager of the Sun Life family of mutual funds. Commissions, trailing commissions, management fees and expenses all may be associated with mutual fund investments. Please read the fund’s prospectus. Mutual funds are not guaranteed, their values change frequently, and past performance may not be repeated. Sun Life Global Investments is a trade name of SLGI Asset Management Inc., Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada, and Sun Life Financial Trust Inc., all of which are members of the Sun Life group of companies. MFS Investment Management and Sun Life Capital Management (Canada) Inc. are sub-advisors to the Sun Life mutual funds, and are affiliates of SLGI Asset Management Inc.

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2022 AUM as of December 31, 2022. Includes Institutional, Mutual Funds, Payout Annuities, Insurance GICs, Trust GICs, and Sun Life GIFs. Institutional mandates are sub-advised by SLGI and offered as segregated funds by Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada through Group Retirement Services.

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