Pax World Funds has created the the first socially responsible high yield bond fund, the Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based company said today.
The fund, to be launched today, is a no-load fund that will be available to investors who wish to responsibly invest $250 or more.
Through September 30, high yield bond funds have outperformed all types of taxable bond funds. "We intend on being term-long investors with a focus on 30 to 40 companies. We're not indexers; we do in-depth work and expect to own positions for years, not months," said Diane Keefe, vice president and portfolio manager of high yield funds.
"We are going to be very involved in telecommunications, health care, media and information technology," Keefe told the MFWire.com. "The fund will also be underweighted in steel, forest products and chemicals."
The fund will be run though
H.G. Wellington and hopefully distributed in wrap programs, though broker/dealers and large supermarkets including
Schwab,
Fidelity and
Jack White, Charlie Right, vice president of marketing at Pax World said.
High yield bond funds are traditionally used by foundations, pension funds, school endowments, individual IRA's and 401(k) plans, many of which have also recently been investors in socially responsible funds.
The fund plans to market directly to the retail customer. To start the new fund will have a prominent position on Pax's Web site. Beginning in January, advertisements about the high yield bond fund will be seen in several print publications including
Mother Jones,
C.R. Club and
Utne Reader, Right said.
"We are negotiating a deal to sponsor the closed captioning on CNN headline news," Right added. "We think it's a good cause and good exposure."
Right said the company has sponsored the closed captioning segment before and the response has not been large in numbers but of those who did respond, the outcome was more lucrative than normal.
The fund will have an expense ration of 85 basis points.
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