BGF US Dollar High Yield Bd A3 USD

Analyst Report
Morningstar's Take
|03/09/2024

by Jeana Marie Doubell
On May 11, 2023, BlackRock announced that high-yield portfolio manager and CIO of credit James Keenan will move to a new position on the private side of the business as CIO and global head of credit for BlackRock Alternatives. The leveraged finance team that Keenan has built up over the past decade, with its deep bench of senior investment professionals, will be moved under the fundamental fixed-income team. Veteran co-heads of U.S. leveraged finance, Mitchell Garfin and David Delbos, will now report to Rick Rieder, who is the CIO and head of fundamental fixed-income. As a result, Keenan was removed as a named manager from all high-yield and floating-rate funds that are managed by the leveraged finance team. We do not see this change as a significant loss, as Keenan had been much less involved in the day-to-day running of these funds since his promotion to CIO of global credit in 2014, which had increasingly taken up the majority of his time in recent years.

BlackRock High Yield Bond and BGF US Dollar High Yield Bond will continue to be managed by the veteran three-member manager team. Garfin and Derek Schoenhofen have been named managers here since 2009 alongside Keenan, and they were joined in 2015 by Delbos. Accomplished, senior investors with a proven track record; this trio of lead managers have been the day-to-day decision-makers and risk-takers for these funds for several years, and we remain confident in their abilities. Both funds retain their High People and Above Average Process Pillar ratings.

 
BlackRock’s US high-yield bond strategy is a strong offer, boasting a veteran management team and extensive supporting resources coupled with a well-rounded investment approach.

Portfolio managers Mitchell Garfin and David Delbos, co-heads of BlackRock’s US leveraged finance team, have collaborated for nearly a decade as the day-to-day managers at this strategy, sold in the US as BlackRock High Yield Bond and in Europe and Asia as BGF US Dollar High Yield Bond. Together, the duo boasts half a century of experience in leveraged finance, making this management crew one of the most seasoned in the high-yield bond Morningstar Category, and they are responsible for both top-down macro calls and bottom-up security selection here.

The managers follow a flexible approach, emphasizing higher-quality bonds when riskier debt offers paltry compensation and leaning into lower-quality market segments when they think risk-taking pays off. With roughly USD 55 billion under management across its global high-yield strategies, the leveraged finance team has a large footprint in the high-yield market, so staying nimble can be tricky. The team attempts to overcome some of those challenges by broadening its scope to include bank loans (in its US-domiciled fund) and collateralized loan obligations (in its European vehicle), as well as investment-grade corporates (historically ranging between 0% and 15% of portfolio assets). The team can also venture into equities (up to 10% of portfolio assets). In recent years, the strategy has also invested more in exchange-traded funds (which have reached roughly 10% of assets at times), credit default swaps, and total return swaps to quickly gain or trim diversified market exposure when such instruments are easier to trade or better priced than cash bonds.

This flexible approach has resulted in an impressive long-term track record. Over Mitchell Garfin and David Delbos’ tenure from March 2015 through July 2023, both the US- and Luxembourg-domiciled funds landed in the top quartiles of their US high-yield categories in terms of absolute and risk-adjusted returns (as measured by Sharpe ratio).
 
Morningstar Medalist Rating™A good offering.
To find out how Morningstar rates a fund click here.
Morningstar Pillars
PeopleHigh
ParentAbove Average
ProcessAbove Average
 
Morningstar Medalist RatingMorningstar assigns the Medalist Rating to funds that are qualitatively and quantitatively assessed through manager research and algorithmic processes. The assessment turns on three key “pillars” – People, Process, and Parent – that yield an estimate of how well a fund will perform before fees but after adjusting for risk.
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