Pacific Income Advisers
Measure Risk. Manage Return.
Mutual Funds — PIA High Yield Fund
Investment Objective
The PIA High Yield Fund’s primary objective is to seek a high level of current income.
Fund Facts (As of 9/30/24)
Style Benchmark: Bloomberg U.S. Corporate High Yield Index
Symbol: PHYSX
CUSIP: 007989163
Fund Assets: $84 million
Fund Inception: 12.31.10
Expense Ratio: 1.06%
*Net Expense Ratio: 0.65%
Investment Philosophy
We believe the high yield market has historically offered sufficient income to over-compensate for default risk as well as offer the potential to produce capital gains when issuers have improved their credit quality. We know that defaults have been largely correlated by industry, so we defensively seek to underweight those industries, where we can identify negative secular trends. We believe that “value” driven company-specific analysis can capture excess returns from companies that demonstrate they can generate free cash flow throughout an economic cycle and tend to overweight small and thinly followed issues, where our comparative advantage is greatest and where we believe we are being paid well for the risk.
Investment Process
PIA High Yield employs a disciplined, fundamental approach to evaluate high yield opportunities. PIA believes we can add value from our top-down decision-making as a result of our proprietary risk-adjusted quantitative/qualitative analysis and our willingness to completely avoid industries we believe do not warrant leveraged finance over the current business cycle. Additionally, we employ a high conviction approach toward credit selection within industries we favor.
Within those industries whose economics we believe to be resilient enough to support high financial leverage, our credit analysis shifts to a very granular “bottom-up” approach. We believe this is particularly important with mid-cap and small-cap companies, which we believe tend to offer the most attractive credit metrics and return potential. We favor smaller, oligopolistic companies that can dominate small, domestic niche industries. We believe relative size within a respective industry is more important than absolute size when determining a company’s pricing power. Additionally, smaller companies receive less Wall Street research and often have fewer comparable issuers, which provides greater opportunity for our industry-specialization model to develop comparative advantages in both information and analytical judgment.
We believe our Alpha Thesis and Investment Approach differentiate us from our competitors:
- We are willing to significantly underweight or zero-weight unattractive industries, which has reduced default risk.
- We focus on small/mid-size issuers where we can maximize our research value added.
- We invest in businesses we believe can survive a complete business cycle. Our knowledge and conviction adds value in difficult economies.
Disclosure
*Effective September 1, 2024, Pacific Income Advisers, Inc., (the “Adviser”) has agreed to reduce the Fund’s temporary operating expense limitation from 0.86% to 0.65%. Accordingly, as of September 1, 2024, the Adviser has agreed to temporarily waive all or a portion of its management fee and pay Fund expenses (excluding AFFE, interest expense, taxes and extraordinary expenses) in order to limit Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses to 0.65% of average daily net assets for the Fund’s Institutional Class shares through at least March 29, 2025. The Net Expense is what the investor has paid.
Investments in debt securities typically decrease in value when interest rates rise. This risk is usually greater for longer-term debt securities. The Fund may invest in foreign securities which involve greater volatility and political, economic and currency risks and differences in accounting methods. These risks may increase for emerging markets. Investment by the Fund in lower-rated and non-rated securities presents a greater risk of loss to principal and interest than higher-rated securities. The Fund may invest in derivatives, which may involve risks greater than the risks presented by more traditional investments. The risk of owning an ETF or mutual fund generally reflects the risks of owning the underlying securities that the ETF or mutual fund holds. It will also bear additional expenses, including operating expenses, brokerage costs & the potential duplication of management fees. These risks are fully disclosed in the Prospectus.
Bond ratings provide the probability of an issuer defaulting based on the analysis of the issuer’s financial condition and profit potential. Bond rating services are provided by credit rating agencies currently registered as Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations (“NRSROs”). Bond ratings start at AAA (denoting the highest investment quality) and usually end at D (meaning payment is in default). Securities not covered by any agency will receive a non-rated (NR) rating.
The Bloomberg U.S. Corporate High Yield Index covers the universe of fixed rate, non-investment grade debt. Eurobonds and debt issues from countries designated as emerging markets (e.g., Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, etc.) are excluded, but Canadian and global bonds (SEC registered) of issuers in non-EMG countries are included. Original issue zeroes, step-up coupon structures, 144-As and pay-in-kind bonds (PIKs, as of October 1, 2009) are also included. The index includes both corporate and non-corporate sectors. The corporate sectors are Industrial, Utility, and Finance, which include both U.S. and non-U.S. corporations. The Yankee sector has been discontinued as of 7/1/00. The bonds in the former Yankee sector have not been removed from the index, but have been reclassified into other sectors. You cannot invest directly in an index.
Free Cash Flow – revenue less operating expenses including interest expenses and maintenance capital spending. It is the discretionary cash that a company has after all expenses and is available for purposes such as dividend payments, investing back into the business or share repurchases.
Alpha is a measure of the so-called active return on an investment, the performance of that investment compared to a suitable market index.
Diversification does not guarantee a profit or protect from loss in a declining market.
Mutual fund investing involves risk. Principal loss is possible.
Statutory Prospectuses – High Yield Fund, Short Term Securities Fund, BBB Bond Fund, MBS Bond Fund, and High Yield MACS Fund.
The PIA Mutual Funds are distributed by Quasar Distributors, LLC