Alma Selwood Euro High-Grade
Overview
Alma Selwood Euro High-Grade is a long only European credit investment grade fund.
The fund’s management is delegated to Selwood AM France.
Share Class
NAV
Cumulative Performance (%)
Fund Inception 15 September 2021
| Daily | Monthly | Ytd | 1Yr | 3Yr | 5Yr | Incept. | Incept.Date |
|---|
The performance data shown represents past performance. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Current performance may be lower or higher than the performance quoted. The investment return and the principal value of an investment will fluctuate so that an investor’s shares, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than their original cost.
Strategy & Manager
Fund Strategy
The Strategy aims to deliver enhanced risk / returns by profiting from dislocations in the pricing of index-related credit instruments (iTraxx Main Europe). The Fund seeks to outperform standard Investment Grade Long Only cash allocations / ETF. The Fund is focused on European investment grade credit instruments, and aims to provide an alternative to traditional cash credit solutions through predominantly deploying senior tranches of CDS index-related instruments. Selwood has also sought to incorporate risk mitigation criteria for the Fund, and seeks to lower capital consumption under Solvency II.
Investment Manager
Selwood Asset Management is a London based fundamental credit investment manager, established in 2015 by Sofiane Gharred, a former partner at Chenavari and proprietary trader at Credit Agricole CIB. Created in 2020, Selwood Asset Management (France) SAS, is led by Guillaume Merle and Mathieu Labelle. The Firm is focused on managing long bias fixed income funds and seeks to develop products which utilise credit indices and derivatives.
Key Persons
Mathieu Labelle
CIO and Conducting Officer of Selwood Asset Management (France) SAS
Mathieu is a fixed income trader with 20 years’ industry experience. He has expertise across instruments, having been a market maker on structured credit and derivatives, government bonds and covered bonds.
Prior to joining Selwood, Mathieu was a senior trader at Credit Agricole CIB in London, where he spent over 15 years. At Credit Agricole CIB, Mathieu developed extensive knowledge in rates and credit trading, in both flows and structured trading. He gained expertise in identifying business opportunities, following and analysing market behaviour, and leveraging a deep understanding of financial industry to drive account and trading success.
Mathieu holds a bachelor of Physics from University of Rouen Normandie, an ITM diploma (Master) from CFPB. He was authorised by the UK’s FCA as approved person between 2005 and 2016 (MAL01151).
Thibault Brohard
Co-CIO of Selwood Asset Management (France) SAS
Thibault is a fixed income trader with 15 years’ of industry experience. He has a strong expertise in structured credit investments having been a Structured Credit Trader most of his career. Prior to joining Selwood, Thibault was a senior PM at Orchard Asset Management in London where he spent almost 6 years managing at peak a fund of circa EUR 1bn. Before that he spent 2Y at Christofferson & Rob as Director / PM to help build their structured credit derivatives fund dealing with Rec Cap transactions and acquiring portfolios of derivatives from core and non-core Bank divisions. He also worked several years in the banking industry at UBS as an Executive Director and Calyon – always as a Structured Credit Trader.
Thibault holds a Master of Science from London School of Economics and a degree from Ecole Polytechnique in France (Grande Ecole for Research and Engineering, specialisation in Economics and Applied Mathematics).
Statistics & Commentary
Performance
The performance data shown represents past performance. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Current performance may be lower or higher than the performance data quoted. The investment return and the principal value of an investment will fluctuate so that an investor's shares, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than their original cost.
Investment Manager's Commentary
as of 30/04/2025Market Review and Outlook
This month was marked by the “Liberation Day” on April 2, when President Donald Trump announced sweeping new tariffs. These measures extended beyond the previously declared tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico to include nearly all global trade partners. The decision came as a shock to markets, triggering a severe global sell-off. In the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 9.25% over two days, while the NASDAQ fell by 5.8%. European and Asian markets also experienced substantial declines. The U.S. dollar moved to 1.15 against the euro during the month. Gold also benefited from the market turmoil, rising up to 10% during the month and bringing its year-to-date gain to 30% at the end of April. The metal served as a safe haven amid heightened volatility (VIX rose above 50) and uncertainty triggered by the tariff announcements and the resulting global market disruption.
In our view, the most important takeaway was the unprecedented lack of preparation and foresight surrounding this decision, particularly regarding how markets might react.
A partial rollback of these tariffs was prompted by the U.S. 10-year Treasury auction, where yields surged from 3.90% to 4.50%. In response, President Trump announced a 90-day partial suspension of the highest tariffs (excluding those on China), capping them at 10%. This rollback was followed by signals from the U.S. administration indicating that negotiations were resuming. As a result, the market’s focus shifted to U.S.–China relations and potential retaliatory measures, many of which were later softened or exempted under pressure from U.S. industry stakeholders.
Rate products benefited from the flight to safety, with yields on the 5-year German Bund falling below 2%, down from 2.3%. In credit markets, performance was driven by duration, as the Euro Cash Credit Index rose 0.99% over the month. On the synthetic side, trading activity surged in April, with iTraxx volumes averaging €23 billion daily and peaking at €53 billion. The liquidity of the synthetic indices clearly attracted hedging flows, while cash market volumes remained subdued. The iTraxx IG 5Y finished 4.5bps wider during the month.
Fund
The fund ended the month up 0.44%, supported by its duration exposure but partially dragged down by wider iTraxx spreads. Two key sources of potential relative performance versus the benchmark were identified: first, the favourable basis between synthetic and cash markets, highlighting the relative cheapness of synthetic spreads; and second, the sharp rise in correlation, which reached levels last seen in 2020—up nearly 3% year-to-date to 81.30%. This increase in correlation was driven by strong investor demand for junior tranches, with the iTraxx 0–3% tranche, for example, offering spreads above 10% per annum as of the 9th.
Facts & Documents
Facts
Fund Domicile: Luxembourg
Fund Type: UCITS SICAV
Fund Launch: 15 September 2021
Base Currency: EUR
Depositary, Administrator, Transfert Agent: CACEIS Investor Services Bank S.A.
Dealing: Daily with a 2-days notice
Cut-off time: 3 pm CET
Management Company: Alma Capital Investment Management
Investment Manager: Selwood Asset Management (France) SAS
Countries where the fund is registered:
Luxembourg, Austria, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Finland, Ireland
Sustainability-related disclosures:
The information related to the integration of sustainability risks and to the potential adverse sustainability impacts at the sub-fund level can be found in the prospectus of the Fund.
Identifiers:
I1C-E
ISIN: LU2139806298
Ticker: ALSEHIE LX Equity
Launch: 15 Sep 2021
I2C-E
ISIN: LU2139806538
Ticker: ALSEHIC LX
Launch: 6 Oct 2021
I2D-E
ISIN: LU2277570862
Ticker: ALSEHDE LX Equity
Launch: 15 Sep 2021