Investment Product and Service Launches

Principal Global Investors Creates Combined Emerging Market Fixed Income Team

Principal Global Investors has announced that it will align market fixed-income capabilities within Finisterre Capital and Principal Global Fixed Income to meet client demand and future product development.

“For investors looking for income, emerging markets represent a critical opportunity across asset classes as these geographies are experiencing significant demographic change and economic growth,” says Pat Halter, president and CEO of Principal Global Investors. “As a combined emerging market fixed income team, we will be set up for greater collaboration between investment teams, leading to more innovative solutions to meet client needs.” 

As part of the alignment, Principal will acquire the remaining stake in Finisterre Capital, of which it has had a majority stake since 2011. The investment process and teams for Finisterre and Principal Global Fixed Income remain unchanged.

“Together, our teams will manage more than $7.6 billion in assets and cover the full spectrum of emerging market fixed income solutions to meet investors’ needs through varying market cycles,” says Halter.

BNY Mellon Presents Japan Womenomics Fund

BNY Mellon Investment Management has launched Dreyfus Japan Womenomics Fund. The fund is sub-advised by BNY Mellon Asset Management Japan Limited (BNYMAM Japan), an affiliate of the fund’s investment adviser, and The Dreyfus Corporation, BNY Mellon’s U.S. Fund Platform.

The fund is expected to invest in Japanese-listed companies that BNYMAM Japan believes will benefit from the Japanese government’s “Womenomics” initiative, which seeks to enhance economic growth in Japan through improved gender parity in the workforce. The Womenomics initiative includes efforts to ease barriers to female employment outside the home, promote women to leadership positions, and close the gender pay gap. Recent government policies to support the initiative have included the labor reform law, expanding day care facilities, and a law requiring action plans from companies of a certain size to increase female employment.

“Dreyfus Japan Womenomics Fund is BNY Mellon’s first U.S. thematic fund offering investors direct exposure to the improving Japanese economy,” says Alicia Levine, chief strategist, BNY Mellon Investment Management. “With the increase in investor demand for strategies tied to unleashing female potential and improved gender diversity, the Dreyfus Japan Womenomics Fund offers a solution for growth-seeking investors in one of the only nations with a sustained program in place to advance the economic opportunity of women in society.”

BNYMAM Japan will use an investment process that combines analysis and security valuation with the Womenomics growth theme. Additionally, the firm plans to invest in Japanese companies that will benefit from the Womenomics initiative, including those that actively hire and promote women, provide products or services which target women, and benefit directly or indirectly from the economic potential of improved gender parity in the workforce.

The fund is managed by five members of the Japan Equity Investment Division at BNYMAM Japan; Makiko Togari, the Fund’s lead portfolio manager, Miyuki Kashima, Masafumi Oshiden, Kazuya Kurosawa, and Takashi Shimoyanagita. The fund is not managed to a benchmark index, nor will the fund’s portfolio have the same characteristics as its designated broad-based securities market index, TOPIX Total Return Index, a market capitalization-weighted index consisting of all stocks traded on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

“Using Womenomics as a filter, the fund seeks to offer investors dual exposure to a measurable secular growth theme and Japan’s economic recovery,” says Kashima. “The fund’s investment criteria are derived from data we believe consistently demonstrate the escalating power of the female consumer as women become a larger percentage of the labor force and the outperformance of companies that employ and promote more women. The fund seeks to offer investors a differentiated way to access the Japanese market through an active, fundamental approach to isolate growth companies.”

The fund offers Class A (DJWAX), Class C (DJWCX), and Class I (DJWIX) shares with a minimum initial investment of $1,000. The fund also offers Class Y (DJWYX) shares generally with a minimum initial investment of $1,000,000.