Aberdeen continues loans expansion with appointment of global head of loans

The company’s fixed income team has invested in the loans market through its Global High Income Fund for some time, as well as managing separate accounts for institutional clients.

Loans can provide the potential for capital preservation, outperformance in a rising interest rate environment, provide stable cash income and also help diversify portfolios, the firm said.

Typical bond products are focussed on investing in the US market, the world’s largest.

Aberdeen said part of Mr Mehta’s role will be “to continue Aberdeen’s drive to invest in a much wider, global range of loans across the US, Europe and emerging markets. Aberden benefits from a large, global team, a disciplined process based on fundamental research and established loan investment experience”.

Mr Mehta will report into Aberdeen’s global head of high yield Steve Logan and form part of the 20 strong global high yield group. He was previously a senior trader in BNP Paribas’s Loan and Distressed debt team and the Leverage Loan, Distressed and High Yield Sales team in EMEA before that.

Steve Logan, Global Head of High Yield at Aberdeen Asset Management, said:“Paul’s appointment is part of our strategy to further strengthen our loans capability, where we have been investing for a number years. This also reflects the increasing appetite from clients to invest in loans. To this end we are working to provide more tailored solutions that suit our clients’ requirements, which means including an emerging market element, supported by our truly global fixed income research platform.”