Legal & General Investments, a provider of retail index tracking funds in the UK, has launched the Legal & General Short Dated Sterling Corporate Bond Index Fund.
It has launched the fund, it says, in response to investor demand for shorter maturity fixed income products. It has an annual management charge of 0.15% and it is planned that the fund will be made available through all major intermediary platforms.
The fund tracks the Markit iBoxx Sterling Corporates 1-5 Index, comprised of investment grade corporate bonds denominated in sterling that have a maturity of between one and five years.
Legal & General Investment Management's Index Funds team will manage the fund, utilising its scale and in-house expertise to minimise transaction costs and maximise investor value.
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Simon Pistell, managing director, Legal & General Investments, an IFP Corporate Member, said: "With the launch of this new fund, we are building on our commitment to offer simple, high quality and low cost index funds to the retail market.
"L&GI has made it a priority to listen closely to customers and their advisers and expand our range of market-leading index funds in order to offer the necessary building blocks with which they can construct diversified portfolios for their clients.
"Investors are understandably concerned about the impact of rising interest rates on fixed income holdings and shorter maturity sterling corporate bonds can be used to reduce portfolio duration, providing a useful tool in managing the interest rate sensitivity of client holdings."
Legal & General has £281 billion under management in index-tracking funds as at 31 December 2013 and manages £20.42 billion in sterling corporate bond index funds.