Manager Announcement: BlackRock SGMF US Liquid Assets UK
Blackrock Capital Management, Inc. (Blackrock) has been added to the SGMF U.S. Liquid Assets Fund, as at 15 April 2016.
SEI has decided to remove BofA Advisors, LLC (BofA) from this fund due to BofA’s strategic decision to exit the money market management business.
Addition of BlackRock: Why We Chose Them
- Collaborative portfolio construction: Blackrock’s portfolio construction process is tightly integrated with their investment process, as portfolio managers and credit analysts are effectively joined at the hip when building portfolios.
- Robust risk management and compliance processes: The Risk & Quantitative Analysis Group provides independent top-down and bottom-up oversight and partners with Blackrock’s investment teams to ensure that risks in the portfolios are consistent with the team’s current investment themes. Blackrock’s proprietary compliance system confirms that portfolios are managed according to their stated guidelines and applicable regulatory requirements.
What They Do
Blackrock seeks to invest in high-quality securities rather than chasing higher yields, and its cash management style is designed to meet investment objectives of capital preservation, liquidity and yield—in that order. Careful analysis of credit, interest-rate trends and relative-value opportunities support this philosophy in an effort to consistently produce exceptional investment returns on a risk-adjusted basis.
How They Do It
Blackrock believes short-term assets are most effectively managed on the basis of security selection, credit analysis and duration, yield-curve and sector positioning. Its Cash Management Credit Committee works hand-in-hand with credit analysts and portfolio managers on both the taxable and tax-exempt sides. All securities purchased are selected from the Committee’s continuously-reviewed approved issuer list. Its rigorous investment process aims to create “false positives” in managing the list, as evidenced by the investment team’s long history of removing issuers ahead of downgrades.
Blackrock performs daily stress testing of the portfolio to measure the potential risks associated with hypothetical events, such as a change in short-term interest rates, an increase in shareholder redemptions or a downgrade of (or default on) portfolio securities. Blackrock’s Risk & Quantitative Analysis Group reviews stress test results and any recommended adjustments with Blackrock’s Portfolio Management Group at least monthly, or more frequently if needed.
About BlackRock
Blackrock was founded in 1988 on the belief that investment risks needed to be better understood and managed. As at 31 December 2015, Blackrock’s Cash Management business had over $489 billion in assets under management.
Glossary of Financial Terms:
- Bottom Up: Bottom-up managers focus on individual stock selection instead of the overall economic environment.
- Duration: Duration is a measure of risk in bond investing and indicates how price-sensitive a bond is to changes in interest rates. A long (overweight) duration stance indicates the portfolio duration is higher than that of the benchmark whereas a short (underweight) duration stance indicates a lower duration. Duration is measured in years and securities with longer durations are more sensitive to interest-rate changes.
- Liquidity: Liquidity refers to the ease at which a holding can be bought or sold.
- Top Down: Top-down managers focus on the overall economic environment instead of individual stock selection.
- Yield Curve: The yield curve represents differences in yields across a range of maturities of bonds of the same issuer or credit rating (likelihood of default). A steeper yield curve represents a greater difference between the yields. A flatter curve indicates the yields are closer together.
When a manager is removed from the manager line-up in one of SEI's Funds, a letter is sent to the affected manager announcing this action. In order to protect market-sensitive information, SEI will not communicate a manager removal to clients until all trades have been finalised. This may mean that there is a delay between SEI legally notifying a manager of their removal from the line-up of a Fund and a manager change memo being issued to our clients. In the meantime, all SEI deliverables and communications will continue to show this manager in the line-up of the Fund until the next regularly scheduled update. Communications will not be retroactively amended. The "effective date" date quoted in the manager change memo reflects the effective date quoted in the termination letter sent to the manager by SEI.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The opinions and views contained in this document are solely those of SEI and are subject to change; descriptions relating to organisational structure, teams, and investment processes herein may differ significantly from those prescribed by underlying managers regarding their own investment houses and investments.
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