Advisers and allocators have been investing millions into a relatively young fund from Nedgroup Investments in a quest for income, creating demand for more platforms to add the fund.

The Global Strategic Bond Fund, co-managed by David Roberts and Alex Ralph, launched in January 2024.

While allocators usually wait for at least a two-year period before putting significant amounts of money into a new fund — regardless of how experienced the managers are — the GSBF saw significant levels of investment within 12 months of launch.

Becketts bought into the fund almost as soon as it was launched in 2024, according to sister title Asset Allocator.

By the end of August 2025, the fund was £99mn in size; by October 31, this had risen to £173mn.

According to latest figures obtained by FT Adviser, the fund now has approximately £184mn in assets under management.

Apiramy Jeyarajah, chief operating officer for Nedgroup Investments, said this was set to rise further in the first half of the year, as the company enters into agreements with more platforms to add the fund, and more institutional and discretionary managers buy into it.

The fund is now on approximately 15 platforms, and she said Nedgroup was actively in conversation with others, given that both allocators and advisers have expressed interest in getting wider access to the fund.

Accumulation vs Distribution

According to Jeyarajah, the distribution share class has proved more popular than the accumulation classes.

Broken down, the split as at the beginning of January was:

Accumulation: £74,577,181
Distribution: £108,586,990

She attributed this to the continued and rising need of advisers and allocators to meet client demand for steady, consistent income streams both in retirement and in the run-up to retirement.

Jeyarajah told FT Adviser: “We have seen huge inflows and, as a result, are talking to larger asset allocators who want to have exposure to a fund with a defensive, global approach, without taking undue duration risk, and with a steady income stream.

“We have seen the ‘quest for income’ play out as a theme over recent years. Everyone wants it, everyone talks about it, but with the GSBF we have a fund that has consistency of return, regardless of market cycles.

“This is why we are seeing more investors buying into the distribution share class rather than the accumulation share class.”

Fund positioning

With this inflow of money, the fund managers have needed to be on top of where this cash is allocated.

Between August and October 2025, the fund’s cash holdings increased slightly.

But Roberts told FT Adviser the slight rise was likely to be just “timing”. He explained: “We have been running fairly consistently with 2-5 per cent cash.

“There were no changes in market conditions leading to cash reductions, and normally we will run close to fully invested.”

When it comes to putting those inflows to work, Roberts added: “We are mandated to protect existing customers.

“As far as is sensible, we will look to maintain the overall shape of the fund on either inflow or outflow, avoiding diluting existing positions.

“Thankfully we are in the more liquid parts of bond markets, investing often in $-denominated multibillion bonds, so even down to individual bond level we can often pro rate cash flow.”

He said the team would occasionally hold off buying specific securities, if they believed prices did not reflect customer interests. In those rare instances, the team normally buys proxy bonds to maintain fund shape.

Roberts added: “This is the approach Alex and I have used in prior organisations and is unlikely to vary as the fund grows further, given each of us has experience managing multibillion-dollar portfolios.”

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