The BNY Mellon Global Real Return Fund is an excellent example of a flexible mixed assets Fund utilizing disciplined portfolio management and risk oversight while consistently achieving its annual return goal above cash benchmarks.

To steer its diverse multi-asset portfolio, BNY emphasized its thematic investment process to navigating long-term secular trends affecting markets, industries, and companies. Another distinctive feature of its strategy is to add a stabilizing layer of financial instruments or assets to provide downside protection to its return-seeking core assets.

We noted a rigorous Fund discipline with clear portfolio management controls to avoid concentration and correlation risk. Regular liquidity analyses and stress tests of portfolios are undertaken with both an Investment Risk Oversight Group and its subcommittee, the Fixed income Investment Risk Oversight Group.

Despite the ambitious target to provide cash +4% on an annualized basis, the Fund had consistently achieved this. While it is difficult to benchmark this performance target, another indicator of investor confidence was strong drawdown recovery.

This Fund has been reviewed by eight industry veterans of the Benchmark judging committee.