LUXEMBOURG, LU — Nordea Asset Management (NAM) is pleased to celebrate the 3-year anniversary of five fixed income funds within its ESG STARS offering: Nordea 1 –Emerging Stars Bond Fund, Nordea 1 – European Corporate Stars Bond Fund, Nordea 1 – European High Yield Stars Bond Fund, Nordea 1 – North American High Yield Stars Bond Fund and Nordea 1 – US Corporate Stars Bond Fund.

NAM is reinforcing its position as an ESG leader, with five ESG bond funds reaching the 3-year milestone. These funds, which sit within the ESG STARS fund family, are ideal building blocks for allocators aiming to comply with the new MiFID sustainability regulations that will come into force this August. All of these funds – like the other ESG STARS funds – are classified as Article 8 and suitable for clients with sustainability preferences.

These strategies not only have three-year track records, but have considerable assets under management. Three of the funds have over EUR1 bn in AUM: Nordea 1 – Emerging Stars Bond Fund, Nordea 1 – European Corporate Stars Bond Fund and Nordea 1 – US Corporate Stars Bond Fund. The remaining two, the Nordea 1 – European High Yield Stars Bond Fund and North American High Yield Bond Fund, each have over half a billion in AUM.

As ESG STARS funds, these five funds utilise full ESG integration, alongside additional ESG approaches such as enhanced exclusions. These include NAM’s Paris-aligned Fossil Fuel Policy, which ensures the exclusion of all fossil fuel issuers that are not moving towards a green transition. This gives the funds an attractive decarbonisation profile and an ongoing trend of falling greenhouse gas emissions.

“These funds, like all our ESG STARS products, aim to offer investors a way to reduce the carbon emissions in their portfolios,” says Eric Pedersen, Head of Responsible Investments at NAM.*”

The strategies aim to beat their respective benchmarks while leveraging the expertise of one of Europe’s largest award-winning Responsible Investments teams.* The investment approach benefits from a proprietary ESG model that goes beyond simply adhering to an exclusion list. Members of the portfolio management teams participate in international working groups, company meetings and collaborative forums in order to engage with sovereigns and corporates to help them define ESG issues.

All of NAM’s ESG STARS solutions are actively managed and qualify as Article 8 products under SFDR regulations. NAM’s ESG STARS franchise, with €17.9 bn in AUM, consists of 19 equity and fixed income strategies covering various geographies, e.g. Europe, North America, Asia, Emerging Markets. Nordea Asset Management has been committed to Responsible Investment for more than 30 years since the launch of its first sector screened solution in 1988.

The 5 strategies, their AUM and recognitions:

Nordea 1 – Emerging Stars Bond Fund, (LU1915689316 (BP-USD), LU1915689829 (BI-USD)), with over USD1.4bn in AUM, won ESG Fixed Income Fund of the Year, Global 2021 from Environmental Finance1 , and has a LuxFLAG ESG Label2 .

Nordea 1 – European Corporate Stars Bond Fund, (LU1927797156 (BP-EUR), LU1927797586 (BI-EUR)), with over EUR1bn in AUM, has the LuxFLAG ESG Label2 as well as the Towards Sustainability Label (formerly known as Febelfin).

Nordea 1 – European High Yield Stars Bond Fund, (LU1927798717 (BP-EUR), LU1927799012 (BI-EUR)), with over EUR500m in AUM, has the LuxFLAG ESG Label2 and the Towards Sustainability Label.3

Nordea 1 – US Corporate Stars Bond Fund, (LU1933824283 (BP-USD), LU1933824366 (BI-USD)), has around USD1.4bn in AUM.

Nordea 1 – North American High Yield Stars Bond Fund, (LU1937720214 (BP-USD), LU1937720487(BI-USD)), has over USD600m in AUM.