Robeco Investment Grade Corporate Bonds IHHI EUR

The Corporate ex-Financials Index delivered a total return of +0.64% last month. The average credit spread on the index tightened 13 basis points to 121 bps. As a result, non-financial corporates outperformed treasury bonds with an excess return of +0.84%. The yield on 10-year German treasury bonds rose more than 3 basis points to 0.18% at the end of the month. Risk appetite remained strong during February and credit spreads continued to tighten. One of the positive factors in the past weeks was the fact that the US and China seem to get closer to striking a trade deal. The risk of a hard Brexit has been reduced, now that the possibility of an extension of the 29 March deadline has been mentioned by Theresa May. UK banks performed well in the last week of February. The Fed has paused its hiking cycle and has started to talk about the end of quantitative tightening. Lastly, it seems that most investors still have ample cash at hand and new issue allocations were often small. Hence, new issue premiums have already become much smaller. Non-financial corporate hybrids also performed well, delivering more than 1.61% excess return versus treasuries.

The fund invests in Euro denominated securities only.

Robeco Investment Grade Corporate Bonds make use of derivatives for hedging purposes. These derivatives are very liquid.

The IHI EUR shares don't distribute a dividend.

The prime goal of integrating ESG factors in our analysis is to strengthen our ability to assess the downside risk of our credit investments. Our analysts include RobecoSAM sustainability data and use external sources to make an ESG assessment as a part of the fundamental analysis.

Robeco Investment Grade Corporate Bonds provides diversified exposure across circa 80 corporate issuers to the Euro investment grade credit market (corporates only). The fund is excluding exposure to financial companies. The fund contains mainly bonds, and can make use of derivatives very limitedly. The fund aims to outperform its index Barclays Euro-Aggregate: Corporates ex financials 2% Issuer Cap. The index applies an issuer cap to avoid concentration risk. The investment philosophy is based on managing a solid diversified portfolio with a long term view. Top-down beta positioning is based on the outcome of our credit quarterly outlook meeting, in which the team is discussing the fundamental market outlook, valuation of bond markets and market technicals. Bottom-up issuer research is executed by our credit analysts, who execute the fundamental analysis. The analysts' research reports are being discussed in approx. 500 credit committees per year. A proprietary quant model is used to assist in issuer selection. The portfolio managers are responsible for the portfolio construction. A proprietary developed risk management approach avoids high risk concentration in the portfolio. As the investment process is well-structured and proven over time, it contributes to repeatable performance delivery.

Risk management is fully embedded in the investment process to ensure that the fund's positions remain within set limits at all times.