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| Thomas Seay |
Victory Capital Management, a Cleveland asset manager with $4 billion under management, plans to put more money to work in high-grade corporate bonds and crossover credits, said Thomas Seay, cio for fixed income. The increased participation would come as part of the manager's broader strategy to grow its core fixed-income assets under management, which currently total $4 billion; 35% of that is currently in corporates and it remains unclear how high that exposure will rise. Victory recently hired Craig Ruch, investment-grade portfolio manager at Credit Suisse Asset Management in New York, as the first step in growing its overall credit business. Seay plans to hire an additional credit manager by year-end.
"Our basic objective is for people to start recognizing us as a viable shop to turn to [in core fixed income] and then the assets will come," explained Seay, adding its performance goal is to beat its benchmark by around 40 basis points. The manager uses both the Lehman Brothers Aggregate Bond Index and the Lehman Brothers Intermediate Government/Credit Index. He declined to quantify his targeted assets under management.
In the near-term, Seay said Ruch's addition allows Victory to take on more credit risk. "We can go multiple ways, take bigger bets and go down in credit," he stated, explaining the investor has traditionally been more reserved in credit and now is likely to go down the credit ladder and start investing in crossover credits. "I wouldn't be surprised if two or three years from now we bring out a high-yield platform," he added.
