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    Systematic fixed income

    Systematic fixed income

    Why systematic fixed income?

    Our approach to systematic fixed income investing seeks to deliver consistent return outcomes by utilising what we believe is an innovative model-driven approach to unlocking value in inefficient bond market segments. We aim to achieve this within structurally inefficient sectors of the bond market, seeking to deliver greater consistency in long-term returns through enhanced liquidity and broad diversification.

    What makes systematic fixed income different?

    We believe that our systematic fixed income approach is differentiated in several ways:

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    Repeatable and consistent process

    Repeatable and consistent process

    Our strategies seek to provide consistent sources of alpha within a tightly managed risk budget and seek to deliver outperformance that is less correlated to traditional return sources.

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    Access the full credit premium

    Access the full credit premium

    Our systematic approach helps us to access the full credit premium across liquid and illiquid bonds to extract alpha positions. We believe this makes our strategies an attractive alternative to fundamental styles in the relevant bond market sub-asset classes.

    The ability to efficiently trade less liquid asset classes and issuers means we can seek to benefit from the associated liquidity premium without the typical associated costs.

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    Timely and cost-efficient execution

    Timely and cost-efficient execution

    Our sophisticated trading approach is intended to deliver a more consistent outcome, along with robust liquidity and more cost-efficient trading execution than typically seen in traditional high yield investing.

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    Differentiated alpha drivers

    Differentiated alpha drivers

    Our analysis suggests that when considering the alpha generated, our approach has exhibited a low correlation with actively managed strategies investing in comparable markets. This indicates a potential diversification benefit for multi-manager approaches in the bond asset classes our style is designed to exploit.

    How could systematic fixed income fit into your portfolio?

    We believe our differentiated approach to generating alpha can complement a passive investing approach by delivering a better net-of-cost outcome, and an active fundamental approach by using differentiated alpha return streams to target outperformance of a benchmark. The approach is designed to be flexible and can be highly customised.

    Outcomes

    Insight’s systematic fixed income strategies

    We offer efficient beta strategies that seek to replicate a benchmark, and systematic alpha strategies
    which aim to outperform a benchmark. These are available as segregated mandates or pooled funds.

    The team’s systematic approach to seeking alpha is scalable and flexible. We can tailor a solution customised to your mandate parameters and which is designed to address specific investment challenges that you face.

    Please contact us if you would like to discuss how Insight can support you with a systematic fixed income solution.

    Why Insight for systematic fixed income?
    Why high yield efficient beta?
    Why now for fallen angel bonds?

    Strategy objectives, performance and characteristics

    Find out more on the funds managed for BNY Mellon

    Meet some of the team

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    Paul Benson, CFA, CAIA

    Head of Systematic Fixed Income

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    Paul Benson, CFA, CAIA

    Head of Systematic Fixed Income

    Paul joined Insight in September 2021 following the transition of Mellon Investments’ fixed income strategies to Insight. He has been in the investment industry since 1994. Paul is the head of systematic fixed income, responsible for managing Insight’s quantitative, factor-based fixed income strategies, including the high yield beta strategy. Previously at Mellon Investments, Paul was a senior portfolio manager responsible for the yield curve arbitrage strategy within global asset allocation portfolios. Additionally, he engineered and built the process to automate fixed income portfolio rebalancing and improve operational risk control.

    Prior to joining Mellon Investments, Paul was a senior fixed income portfolio associate at PIMCO, where he analyzed portfolios, and implemented and managed active US and global fixed income portfolios. Previously, he was a trader at Westdeutsche Landesbank Tokyo, where he built the interest rate swaps trading desk, and a trader at Bankers Trust Tokyo, where he ran the Japanese government bond book. Both positions included market making and proprietary trading. Paul received a BA from University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He is a CFA charterholder and is a member of CFA Institute.

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    Deepak Agrawal, PhD

    Head of Quantitative Research, Systematic Fixed Income

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    Deepak Agrawal, PhD

    Head of Quantitative Research, Systematic Fixed Income

    Deepak joined Insight in September 2021 following the transition of Mellon Investments’ fixed income strategies to Insight. He has worked in the investment industry since 2002. Deepak is the Head of Quantitative Research responsible for the strategic direction and development of all fixed income quant strategies.

    Prior to joining Mellon Investments in 2019, Deepak led global macro and fixed income quant research at State Street Global Advisors (SSGA), specializing in global credit, emerging markets and ESG. Prior to that, he was the Principal and Head of Research at DCI Investment Management in San Francisco, having started his career as a Director of Research at Moody’s KMV.

    In parallel with his industry career, Deepak also taught at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley for nearly ten years. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Electronics & Communication Engineering from University of Jodhpur, India and his PhD in finance from New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business.

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    Stephanie Shu, CFA

    Senior Portfolio Manager, Systematic Fixed Income

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    Stephanie Shu, CFA

    Senior Portfolio Manager, Systematic Fixed Income

    Stephanie joined Insight in September 2021 following the transition of Mellon Investments’ fixed income strategies to Insight. She has been in the investment industry since 1997 and joined Mellon Investments in 2000. Initially, she managed fixed income hedge funds and systematic active strategies within the group. Since then, Stephanie has become a senior portfolio manager. She is responsible for designing and managing fixed income efficient beta/beta plus strategies, which include the emerging markets local debt, global investment grade credit, fallen angels and global high yield efficient beta/beta plus strategies. Stephanie also manages fixed income ETFs and quantitative model-driven non-index strategies; she works closely with the fixed income research team for all quantitative model design and implementation.

    Prior to joining Mellon Investments, Stephanie worked at Gifford Fong Associates where she managed a staff of 15 responsible for the development of financial risk analytics. She earned an MS in finance and mathematics from Texas A&M University. Stephanie is a CFA charterholder and is a member of the CFA Institute.

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    Manuel Hayes

    Senior Portfolio Manager, Systematic Fixed Income

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    Manuel Hayes

    Senior Portfolio Manager, Systematic Fixed Income

    Manuel joined Insight in September 2021 following the transition of Mellon Investments’ fixed income strategies to Insight. He has been in the investment industry since 2004 and joined Mellon Investments in 2009 as a portfolio manager and was the primary credit trader on all global investment corporate, high yield, emerging market hard currency, sovereign and municipal bonds.

    Today, Manuel is a senior portfolio manager responsible for managing investment grade and high yield cash strategies. He has pioneered innovation in bond trading with ‘bond basket’ trading to enable lower transaction costs, scalability and enhanced liquidity in the credit space. Additionally, Manuel actively works with credit researchers to develop new credit strategies as well as the implementation of quantitative model signals.

    Before joining Mellon Investments, he was a credit portfolio associate with Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO), where he analyzed, managed and traded all credit portfolios. Prior to that, he was a fixed income trading associate with Metropolitan West Securities (Wachovia, now Wells Fargo). Manuel earned a BS in economics from the University of California at Berkeley.

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    Syed Zamil

    Senior Product Specialist

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    Syed Zamil

    Senior Product Specialist

    Syed joined Insight in September 2021 following the transition of Mellon Investments’ fixed income strategies to Insight. Syed is a senior product specialist responsible for articulating Insight’s efficient beta strategies to clients and prospects, as well as participating in the refinement of current strategies and the development of new strategies. Syed’s background spans across asset classes including equities, multi-asset strategies and fixed income. He works closely with sales and client service staff worldwide with an eye toward bringing innovative product solutions to client portfolios.

    Prior to joining Mellon Investments in 2015, he was a client portfolio manager at American Century Investments, focused on active equity and multi-asset strategies. Previously, he worked as an investment strategist at BlackRock, primarily focused on active equity. Past roles include director of client service and portfolio management at AXA Rosenberg, portfolio manager at Innovest Capital Management, consultant at Barra and programmer/analyst at Vestek Systems. Syed has been in the investment industry since 1987.

    Syed is a CFA charterholder and a member of the CFA Institute. He earned an MBA in finance from San Francisco State University and a BA in applied math from the University of California at Berkeley.

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