Duff & Phelps Investment Management, a money manager with more than $19 billion in assets, is leveraging its sister company's 19-year experience rating junk bonds to offer a new high-yield investment vehicle to institutions.
The new investment will be based on analysis from Duff & Phelps Investment Research Co., which has been issuing buy/sell/hold recommendations on the high-yield market since 1975.
The new vehicle seeks to fulfill four investment criteria: outperform the broad high-yield market; produce a steady current income stream; preserve capital; and deliver high long-term total returns on a risk-adjusted basis.
According to Duff & Phelps, a 5-year-old portfolio modeled on its recommendations would have posted a 17.3% annual return for its "buy" recommendations as of June 30, compared with an 11.9% total annual return for the Merrill Lynch High Yield Master Index during that same period.
