Top Manager Avoids Aussie Debt: Australia Credit

Bentham Asset Management, whose flagship fund beat all its Australian peers over the past five years, is avoiding the nation’s “expensive” credit markets to buy asset-backed debt offshore and foreign-currency notes of local banks.

Bentham’s A$894 million ($809 million) Wholesale Global Income Fund has returned almost 22 percent per annum on average in the past five years, data compiled by Bloomberg show. In February, its top two company holdings were U.K.-owned Northern Rock Asset Management Plc’s mortgage-backed bonds and National Australia Bank Ltd.’s euro notes, its website shows. The firm, which oversees more than A$4 billion, was named the nation’s top fixed income fund manager for 2014 by Morningstar Inc.