Research house van Eyk’s multi-manager Blueprint Diversified Income Fund (BDIF) has awarded a mandate to new Challenger Financial Services boutique Bentham Asset Management.
The Bentham Professional Syndicated Loan Fund now made up around 5 per cent of the BDIF, van Eyk product manager Jacqui Lemon said.
“We saw relative value in credit and wanted to gain exposure to loans, which we see as an attractive way to access credit,” Lemon said.
“Bentham has a long, successful track record in managing loan portfolios, so it was a natural fit for the fund.”
The allocation to Bentham’s Syndicated Loan Fund was funded from cash, she said.
The fund provides exposure to a diversified portfolio of global, non-investment grade senior secured syndicated loans.
Bentham was formed when Challenger took over financial services firm Credit Suisse’s former credit investment funds.
Its products are managed by Bentham principal Richard Quin and portfolio managers Nik Persic and Mark Fabry.
The van Eyk Blueprint Alternatives Fund was also reshuffled, with the addition of a new fund-of-hedge-funds manager, Fauchier Partners.
“In the hedge funds space we have reduced our allocation to HFA by about 2 per cent and made an allocation to Fauchier Partners,” Lemon said.
“The point was to diversify our hedge funds allocation, so we introduced the London-based manager in May 2010.
“We thought Fauchier’s balanced approach to portfolio construction to control market risks and preserve capital in a distressed market environment complemented the Alternatives Fund well.”
Lemon also said van Eyk’s recently appointed head of research, John O’Brien, sat on Blueprint’s investment committee.
O’Brien, who joined in May, spent most of his career as an analyst with Standard & Poor’s (S&P) in New York.
He moved to S&P’s Melbourne post in early 2007 and was most recently at ANZ as financial institutions group director of research and analysis.
