The idea of a ‘total return’ portfolio has remained something of a holy grail for fund buyers for years. Dana Burns and Danny Zoba believe they have hit upon a winning formula and their joint-second spot in this year’s rankings goes some way to validating that thesis.

‘We run an active total return strategy designed to seek strong returns by combining PineBridge’s top-down views with a bottom-up, credit intensive, research process,’ the pair said in emailed comments.

‘We consciously constrain both credit and duration risk and focus on security selection, which we believe is the best way to consistently drive returns over time.’

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PANDEMIC PROWESS

The duo have worked together on the $163m PineBridge USD Investment Grade Credit fund since 2016. Their active management was evident through the pandemic as they moved quickly to de-risk at a time when firms were set to come under huge amounts of pressure.

‘Months before Covid concerns started to mount in the US we were de-risking the fund due to tight valuations in US investment grade credit.

‘As a result, the fund was well positioned with a material exposure to high quality, liquid securities, including Treasuries, that allowed us to weather the initial hit that risk assets suffered due to the pandemic.

‘When the market stabilised due to the massive response from government and financial authorities, we nimbly increased credit spread risk and benefited as credit spreads recovered.

‘More recently, a decision to steadily reduce risk that commenced when the Fed turned more hawkish last summer, coupled with security selection, contributed to our performance,’ they said.

The fund’s third manager, Robert Vanden Assem, head of developed markets investment grade fixed income, is ranked lower due to being named across more portfolios, which affects his overall Manager Ratio and rank.