OAKVILLE, ONTARIO, February 7, 2020 – Harvest Portfolios Group Inc. (“Harvest”), is pleased to announce its participation in the market opening today to recognize the launch of the Harvest US Investment Grade Bond Plus ETF (“HUIB”). HUIB, launched in partnership with Amundi Canada, Inc. (“Amundi Canada”) and Amundi Pioneer Institutional Asset Management, Inc. (“Amundi Pioneer”), combines a quality core investment grade fixed income ETF with ESG factors for the more socially conscious investors. HUIB began trading on January 15, 2020.
HUIB is the latest addition to the Harvest suite of income-generating ETFs. HUIB’s investment objective is to provide monthly cash distributions and the opportunity for capital appreciation by investing primarily in investment grade corporate debt denominated in U.S. dollars and/or issued by corporations that are headquartered, or do substantial business, in the United States.
“We are pleased to partner with Amundi Canada* and Amundi Pioneer to launch HUIB with specific ESG factors that help provide the corporate quality investors are seeking today”, said Michael Kovacs, President and CEO of Harvest.
HUIB is actively managed by a leading global investment manager. The HUIB portfolio is managed by an experienced three-person team specializing in US Investment Grade Corporate Credit. They collaborate closely with Amundi Pioneer’s entire US fixed income team, which includes 15 credit analysts averaging 19 years of investment experience. They also draw on the resources of Amundi’s global fixed income and ESG teams. Fixed Income is highly specialized, and this is an area where having the expertise like an Amundi Pioneer to monitor the bond landscape and choose which bonds go into HUIB is crucial. Some bonds will move up in the rating scale and get added, some go down and are removed. There will be over 100 names in the portfolio.
In addition, Harvest asked Amundi Pioneer to use their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) screening expertise as part of the filtering process for HUIB’s portfolio. Amundi Pioneer and its affiliates use a proprietary model to incorporate ESG into risk analysis and position selection decisions. This includes an analysis of a wide range of factors that may potentially impact the performance of a security, including its environmental record, its involvement with chemical or biological weapons, whether is has unfair trade or employment practices, or poor governance. Amundi Pioneer has access to a team of analysts globally that focus on proprietary ESG research, and the firm is considered one of the leaders in this field. Harvest believes that ESG is a growing issue, and companies with poor ESG practices will increasingly be excluded from investment universes globally, impacting the performance of those companies going forward.
HUIB is designed for advisors or individuals looking for a low risk rating, good quality, monthly paying, fixed income product. Harvest is also convinced that integrating ESG into the investment process is the right thing to do; delivering value by filtering out companies that are not sustainable or those that may pose a risk due to poor governance, as well as aligning with investor values.
For additional information: Please visit www.harvestportfolios.com, e-mail [email protected] or call toll free 1-866-998-8298.
*Amundi Canada has been retained as the sub-advisor to HUIB. Amundi Canada will, in turn, engage its U.S. affiliate, Amundi Pioneer to perform the day-to-day investment management of the HUIB. Both Amundi Canada and Amundi Pioneer are part of Amundi, Europe’s largest asset manager.
About Harvest
Founded in 2009, Harvest Portfolios Group Inc. is a Canadian Investment Fund Manager which offers an innovative suite of exchange traded funds, mutual funds and publicly listed structured products designed to satisfy the long-term growth and income needs of investors. We pride ourselves in creating trusted investment solutions that meet the expectations of our investors.
About Amundi
Amundi is Europe’s largest asset manager by assets under management and ranks among the top 10 globally.1 It manages 1,563 billion euros2 of assets across six main investment hubs.3 Amundi offers its clients in Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and the Americas a wealth of market expertise and a full range of capabilities across the active, passive and real assets investment universes. Clients also have access to a complete set of services and tools. Headquartered in Paris, Amundi was listed on the Euronext stock exchange in November 2015.
Thanks to its unique research capabilities and the skills of close to 4,500 team members and market experts based in 37 countries, Amundi provides retail, institutional and corporate clients with innovative investment strategies and solutions tailored to their needs, targeted outcomes and risk profiles.
1 Source: IPE “Top 400 Asset Managers”, published in June 2019, based on AUM at December 2018
2 Amundi figures as of September 30, 2019.
3 Investment Hubs: Boston, Dublin, London, Milan, Paris and Tokyo.
Amundi. Confidence must be earned.
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