Products
The MT Thaler product portfolio provides investment alternatives that meet clients` requirements for liquidity and return potential. Our philosophy at MT Thaler is that the risk and liquidity associated with any investment should be consistent with our clients` investment horizon, liquidity needs and tolerance for fluctuations in the market value of their investments.
MT Thaler Short Term Bond Fund
The MT Thaler Short Term Bond Fund is designed for clients demanding a practical high yielding alternative to money market funds and bank term deposits. This Fund seeks to provide at least 2.5% higher yield than two-year German Bunds and invests in a diversified, high quality portfolio of government and corporate bonds that mature within 3.5 years. The Fund offers share classes in CZK, EUR, GBP, CHF and USD, so investors need not worry about adverse foreign exchange rate movements relative to their own base currency. Furthermore, investors can opt for capitalisation shares or dividend paying shares. In the current environment MT Thaler estimates this fund can return 3%-5% per annum. We select bonds for this portfolio based not only on their credit worthiness, but also on how liquid they are. The Fund offers particular advantages to conventional bank term deposits. Term deposits generally offer a fixed rate of interest and may penalize early withdrawals. In contrast, the Short Term Bond Fund offers the potential for higher returns as interest rates rise. While the market value of the fund may fluctuate, liquidity is daily, so investors can redeem at any time and with no penalty. Since the bonds mature within a relatively short period, investors can have confidence that periods of low or negative returns should be short-lived and are likely to be followed by periods of high returns. The fund is UCITS III compliant and has a low minimum initial investment that makes it accessible to almost any investor. This Fund is a compartment of the Pareturn SICAV, which is administered by BNP Paribas.
MT Thaler Credit Opportunity Fund
The MT Thaler Credit Opportunity Fund is designed for clients with a medium term investment horizon and modest risk tolerance. The fund seeks to exploit opportunities in the high yield credit markets. The fund strategy is to maintain a core portfolio of generally liquid bonds with improving credit fundamentals and to complement those holdings with carefully selected special situations with high return potential. The fund can take advantage of the full range of traditional hedging tools for portfolio protection and can exploit opportunities to short bonds whose credit fundamentals are likely to decline. The Fund was opened 23 October 2009 with the principals` own cash and MT Thaler has begun building the portfolio. As of December 15 the Fund is up 3%. Investors may choose either shares denominated in USD or hedged into EUR. Investors may also choose capitalisation shares or dividend paying shares, which feature a quarterly payment in respect of investment income. In contrast to many other hedge funds, performance fees are not charged on returns from interest income. The fund generally holds bonds that mature on average within 5 years. Thus while market values of the bonds may fluctuate, investors can have confidence that periods of low or negative returns are likely to be followed by periods of high returns as bonds mature. The Fund is open to qualified US and non-US investors.
ISCS High Yield Bond Fund
The MT Thaler managed ISCS High Yield Bond Fund is a Czech domiciled, UCITS III compliant open-end fund that invests in a diversified portfolio of high yield bonds issued by companies in Western Europe as well as in Eastern Europe. MT Thaler is responsible for selecting the fund.s securities while ISCS, the Czech asset management subsidiary of the Erste Bank Group, is responsible for fund administration and ensuring the fund is compliant with investment management guidelines, risk management practices and regulatory requirements. In September 2008, after receiving the approval of the Czech National Bank, ISCS named MT Thaler the Advisor to the Fund and the fund strategy was changed from being a fund of funds to a fund that directly invests in bonds.
The Fund is absolute return driven. It.s objective is to provide income and growth by investing in a diversified portfolio of corporate bonds, mainly in the Western and Eastern European high yield bond markets. The average maturity of the bonds in the portfolio is less than 5 years, so investors can have confidence that capital will be preserved in the medium term. The fund is also hedged against its base currency, CZK, so that investors are protected from adverse movements of foreign currency versus CZK. MT Thaler takes particular pride in noting that from 1 September 2008 to 31 August 2009, a period that included the collapse of Lehman Brothers and a global economic crises, this fund produced a return of 8.6% while many other bond funds in the Czech Republic and elsewhere in the world produced lower or negative returns. Following the collapse of Lehman the fund focused on selecting bonds of companies with few near-term restructuring issues and businesses that MT Thaler considered to be resilient. The combination of coupon payments, principal maturities and the return of bond prices to level reflecting the good credit worthiness of the issuers enabled this fund to achieve stellar results. In 2009 the fund returned approximately 66%, which puts it among the top 10% of similarly managed funds in Europe. Minimum investment is CZK 100, making the fund and extremely accessible choice for individuals. Investors can invest in this fund at branches of Ceska Sporitelna or via their client representative at Partners Advisors and at Wood & Company.
MT Thaler Distressed Investment and Loan Restructuring
The MT Thaler Distressed Investment and Loan Restructuring team executes mandates for clients investing in distressed securities and assists banks in the workout of problem loans. In the case of distressed securities, MT Thaler identify high special situations with high potential total returns and manage client investments in those securities. These investments are generally not liquid and are suitable only for sophisticated clients who are willing to accept the lower liquidity and high principal risk in exchange for bigger potential returns. MT Thaler`s mandates in distressed securities exploit our core expertise in credit research and our long experience in credit evaluation, finance and banking. In the case of Loan Restructuring MT Thaler bring an deep experience and broad set of skills to assist banks seeking to maximize the value they can extract from troubled loans. Depending on the unique needs and circumstances of the particular bank, the scope of activity may range from advisory and consulting work to putting the loans into a separately managed investment vehicle.