A few words about Aperture Investors to start

Launched in 2018, Aperture Investors [2] is a US-based asset management company with $4.3 billion in assets under management at the end of 2021. It is a Joint Venture created in partnership with the Generali Group, one of the world’s leading insurance and asset management companies. To date, the company offers 9 types of strategies investing in the equity markets but also in the bond and credit markets. It distinguishes itself from its competitors through its innovative performance-based fee model.

Can you explain your performance fee system?

The philosophy of Aperture Investors, for all its funds, is that the management company and its managers should be remunerated on their ability to generate alpha (outperformance against the benchmark). In the case of ACOF, the annual management fee varies from a minimum of 0.39% [3] when the Fund’s performance only reach the Benchmark (SOFR+2%) or lower to a maximum of 4.29% when the Fund outperforms the Benchmark by at least 13%. This motivates Aperture to be very selective in the recruitment of its managers, in their ability to generate alpha, and implies an alignment of interest between the investors and the asset management company.

Within your range, what is the philosophy of the ACOF strategy in the credit market?

In the Aperture Credit Opportunities fund, we use fundamental analysis as well as quantitative tools to identify what we believe to be idiosyncratic return opportunities in the global credit universe. The idea is to continuously seek out these mispriced opportunities (long and short) while taking advantage of periods of low volatility to hedge against the general market trend through active use of portfolio hedges [4] .

How do you approach the current context of rising inflation in your portfolio management?

A more inflationary environment has a direct impact on the valuation of our long positions. In such a context, we aim to reduce the duration of our portfolio, while protecting ourselves against interest rate risk, for example by using the derivatives market: futures, options or CDS (Credit Default Swaps).

How do you implement your long/short strategy? Do you use credit derivatives?

As I just mentioned, we may use CDS on the issuers we hold in our portfolio. Otherwise, in concrete terms, our long/short strategy focuses mainly on convex opportunities (long and short) that show minimal correlation with the direction of the credit market.