We are pleased to announce an A rating on the Royal London Short Duration Gilts fund. The fund is one of only two open ended funds that provides exposure to the 0-5 year portion of the UK government bond (gilt) market. We believe this low risk exposure can be particularly beneficial for portfolio builders mandated to hold gilts and who want to avoid the high level of interest rate risk contained in the full gilt market.

We know the team at Royal London well, having covered them on other strategies for many years. Whilst it is not ideal that the performance of this fund has lagged its index over time, we have been impressed with the recent updates to the investment process and are pleased to see this underperformance narrow. Indeed, we believe that the managers have a good chance of delivering their index outperformance objective, net of fees, in the years ahead.