02 May 2025
RSMR fund ratings are more than just a badge of quality—they represent trust, due diligence, and a reputation built on rigorous research and expert analysis. Every month we study the universe of funds in the investment marketplace to assess whether they meet our exacting standards and should be given the RSMR seal of approval.
Here are the new rated funds from our April review:
The fund provides a flexible allocation between EM sovereign hard currency, EM sovereign local currency and corporate debt while using derivative instruments across EM and it has the ability to hold short positions through derivatives.
The team comprises investment professionals, most with a background in emerging markets, as well as developed market and credit specialists, who apply an absolute return mindset. A real USP of the process is the amount of time the team spend on the ground undertaking due diligence via self-organised trips. Engagement is important as the team will not invest in any corporate or sovereign issuer unless there is direct engagement. If there is no engagement, or no improvement post engagement, then an issuer cannot be held.
Click here to read the factsheet for the BlueBay Emerging Market Unconstrained Bond
Lord Abbett Global High Yield Bond fund primarily invests in high yield corporate bonds across both US and non-US markets. Alpha is derived from active management that uses fundamental bottom-up credit research, combined with top-down macro and thematic views. Risk budgeting is also a determining factor in delivering alpha. They are also strong believers in the fundamental law of active management that alpha is a function of selection skill and opportunity set. Lord Abbett also takes the view that if you want to outperform on an annual basis, you have to be active, which results in a high fund turnover and the increased trading costs of this turnover are more than offset by the alpha generated.
Click here to read the factsheet for the Lord Abbett Global High Yield Fund
RSMR has rated the Man Sterling Corporate Bond Fund due to its disciplined, value-oriented approach, extensive resources, and proven risk management framework. The fund targets income and capital growth by investing primarily in sterling-denominated investment-grade bonds, while retaining the flexibility to allocate up to 20% to higher-yield credits.
The investment process is driven by bottom-up stock-selection, focused on three pillars: a ‘Margin of Safety’, which seeks bonds whose yields more than compensate for default risk; ‘Alpha not Beta’, which emphasises idiosyncratic credit improvement stories that are uncorrelated with broad macro or interest-rate movements; and ‘Small is Beautiful’, which tilts toward small- and mid-sized issuers often overlooked by larger investors and offers superior risk-reward profiles. The strategy avoids overdependence on large debt issuers and constantly recycles positions: bonds are sold once they reach fair value in favour of undervalued alternatives. This dynamic approach keeps the fund ‘fresh’, fostering outperformance relative to peers. Risk controls include maintaining duration within two years of the benchmark, using derivatives to hedge unwanted exposures, and enforcing diversification limits to mitigate concentration risk.
RSMR sees the fund as a robust core holding for sterling corporate bond allocations—one that has historically delivered top-decile returns across market cycles, thanks to its rigorous fundamental research and agile positioning. While occasional bouts of volatility can occur, the manager’s emphasis on value, credit quality, and downside protection makes the fund suitable for investors seeking reliable income, capital appreciation and portfolio diversification.
Click here to read the factsheet for the Man Sterling Corporate Bond
RSMR rates the Orbis Global Balanced fund because of its structured and rigorous fundamental research process. The Orbis Balanced Fund aims to deliver long-term growth while managing downside risk through a diversified global portfolio of equities and fixed income. With a bottom-up, research-driven investment approach, the fund focuses on undervalued companies with strong return potential. Analysts specialise by region and sector, and their highest-conviction ideas are rigorously vetted through a structured process that integrates fundamental and ESG analysis. Portfolio construction reflects a dynamic allocation driven by long-term risk-adjusted return expectations, not fixed weightings. The fund is led by the Head of the Multi-Asset team, an experienced investor who brings deep knowledge of the firm’s philosophy and applies a consistent approach to delivering long-term returns.
This high-conviction, contrarian strategy is supported by a performance-linked fee structure that refunds clients during periods of underperformance, reinforcing strong alignment of interest. The fund’s flexible, long-term approach can complement passive or growth-oriented strategies by offering capital protection and diversification benefits.
Click here to read the factsheet for the Orbis Global Balanced Fund
An index aware product, the PGIM Global High Yield Fund seeks to add value through active management by identifying and capturing relative value opportunities within the global high yield bond market with an active, risk managed approach using fundamental credit analysis. The scale of the resources available at PGIM allows the fixed income credit analysts and PMs to undertake a great deal of fundamental research into investee companies. This fundamental insight into a company is key to the generation of alpha against the benchmark.
Click here to read the factsheet for the PGIM Global High Yield Bond
RSMR has rated the PIMCO GIS Emerging Market Local Bond fund due to its combination of expertise, robust process, and attractive structural characteristics. Managed by Pramol Dhawan and Michael Davidson - senior members of PIMCO’s 60-strong Emerging Markets team - the fund invests in local-currency sovereign and quasi-sovereign debt across fast-growing markets, with optional currency hedging and disciplined derivative use to optimise returns and control risk.
PIMCO’s world-leading fixed-income capabilities are bolstered by a Global Advisory Board of economists, policymakers, and industry experts who continuously refine the macro and geopolitical insights informing the portfolio’s top-down themes and emerging-market convictions. Importantly, PIMCO eschews reliance on external credit ratings, instead conducting proprietary research to identify issuers with improving fundamentals and upgrade potential, thus targeting enhanced capital appreciation. The firm’s integrated approach systematically marries rigorous quantitative screens with qualitative country-level analysis—recognising the inefficiencies, bid-ask spreads, and volatility endemic to a broad universe of nearly 80 local-currency markets—and embeds robust risk-management safeguards, including diversification limits and scenario stress testing, to mitigate tail risks such as political shocks or institutional fragilities.
Centralised decision-making by the Emerging Markets Portfolio Committee ensures dynamic positioning across beta, thematic tilts, and opportunistic alpha, while PIMCO’s global footprint provides privileged access to new issues and in-depth local intelligence. For sterling investors seeking higher yields, low correlation to developed markets, and potential currency appreciation, RSMR believes the fund’s active, research-driven strategy and PIMCO’s unparalleled scale and resources deliver compelling, risk-adjusted exposure to the rapidly expanding opportunities in emerging-market local debt.
Click here to read the factsheet for the PIMCO GIS Emerging Market Local Bond
The Royal London UK Government Bond and Index Linked funds sit in the IA UK Gilts and IA UK Index-Linked Gilts sectors respectively and are run by the RLAM Rates and Cash team. Both funds are run in a similar manner, with the fund managers looking to add value for investors by combining a top-down and bottom-up approach to create consistent and repeatable excess returns over time. The managers have a strong track record for beating the respective benchmark and peer group average returns after fees and are well placed to take advantage of pricing anomalies in the UK government debt markets.
Click here to read the factsheet for the Royal London Index Linked Fund
Click here to read the factsheet for the Royal London UK Government Bond
The fund is actively managed, providing a flexible combination of high yield and investment grade bonds. The relatively low duration positioning helps limit volatility and enables the fund managers to focus the bulk of their risk budget on sector allocation and stock selection with a view to playing to their strengths. Credit selection is the principal source of outperformance.
This fund offers something a little different to many funds in the IA Strategic Bond sector in that it has an absolute return performance objective. Performance has been strong, and returns have been delivered in a very consistent manner with lower volatility than many of its peers. The managers have the ability to draw on the extensive resources provided by Schroders Global Credit Platform and the broader Global Fixed Income team.
Click here to read the factsheet for the Schroder Strategic Bond
The UBS UK Equity Income Fund is a value-orientated fund. The portfolio managers look for often out of favour stocks where a normalisation in fundamentals and investor sentiment can be identified. The fund takes a contrarian view on investments and typically invests with a five-year holding period taking a long-term view on companies.
This is a high conviction fund and stock specific risks and liquidity constraints are considered when sizing positions. The team aim for a diversified portfolio with sector positioning a result of the opportunity set. The team are mindful of sector and factor biases.
Click here to read the factsheet for the UBS UK Equity Income Fund
For investors looking for exposure to hard currency emerging markets debt, the Vanguard Emerging Markets Bond fund represents a true-to-label core offering in the sector. The fund has consistently outperformed its benchmark and offers an attractive risk-return profile relative to peers. Managed by a well-resourced and stable team, excess returns have primarily been driven by bottom-up security selection. Prudent risk management is an important factor when investing in this space and the team at Vanguard have a keen focus on this area, eschewing large macro-economic bets in favour of bottom-up fundamentals.
Click here to read the factsheet for the Vanguard Emerging Markets Bond
The LGIM Global Infrastructure Index Fund offers cost-effective, passive exposure to companies worldwide that derive the majority of their revenue from core infrastructure activities such as transport, utilities, and telecommunications. By tracking the FTSE Global Core Infrastructure Index, the fund provides access to a defensive asset class, combining the potential for income and long-term growth. The fund uses physical replication and does not engage in securities lending, helping to maintain transparency and reduce risk for retail investors.
RSMR rates the fund highly for its pragmatic and efficient approach to index investing. LGIM aims to enhance returns by minimising transaction costs, carefully managing index changes, and using a disciplined rebalancing strategy. The fund can serve as a core holding or be blended with traditional equity allocations to provide inflation-linked exposure, diversification benefits, and portfolio resilience, particularly during volatile or inflationary periods.
Click here to read the factsheet for the L&G Global Infrastructure Index Fund
The L&G S&P 500 US Equal Weight Index Fund provides low-cost, diversified exposure to the US equity market by tracking the S&P 500 Equal Weight Index. Unlike traditional market-cap weighted indices, it allocates equally to all 500 constituents, reducing concentration in mega-cap stocks and offering more balanced sector exposure providing increased exposure to sectors such as industrials, real estate, and utilities and less of an overweight in technology and communication services. The fund follows a physical replication approach and allows investors to benefit from the growth potential of small and mid-sized companies within the S&P 500 universe, while also helping to mitigate single-stock and sector risk.
LGIM’s pragmatic approach to index tracking focuses on close benchmark replication and value-driven execution. Supported by a global trading team and internal research, the fund seeks to minimise costs and manage risk while maintaining tracking accuracy. With no securities lending and a transparent methodology, the fund is well suited for investors seeking a simple, low-cost way to gain broader participation in the US stock market, either as a standalone core equity holding or as part of a blended investment strategy.
Click here to read the factsheet for the L&G S&P 500 US Equal Weight Index Fund
The CT Sustainable Universal Multi-Asset Portfolio range is an actively managed suite of low-cost, globally diversified, multi-asset solutions that is a robust option for advisers/investors looking for a range of risk managed solutions that factor in sustainability aspects as part of the overall process. The multi-asset team is a well-resourced specialist multi-asset business, with the backing of a multinational business with offices in North America and across the globe. The main investment team members are experienced investors supported by a well-resourced multi-asset team. The investment process is structured but pragmatic, allowing the managers to reduce risk on a tactical basis if deemed appropriate.
Click here to read the factsheet for the CT Sustainable Universal MAP Fund Range
The Royal London GMAP portfolios are managed by the multi-asset team at RLAM, which includes some highly qualified and experienced investment professionals who have a great deal of experience in running these types of strategies. The team also have access to the considerable resources of the wider investment community at RLAM to assist in their decision making. The funds are competitively priced, and the extensive use of in-house funds and passive vehicles helps to keep costs low. They are subject to some strict monitoring and oversight which ensures that the funds retain the flexibility to take advantage of short-term opportunities to add value but within a risk-managed environment. The funds offer investors access to a wide range of asset classes, which includes commodities and commercial property and this diverse mix of investments, along with positive contributions from their tactical asset allocation positioning, have ensured that their performance is very competitive over the medium to long term.
Click here to read the factsheet for the Royal London GMAP Fund Range
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The value of investments and the income from them may go down as well as up and investors may not get back the amounts originally invested.