Natixis Investment Managers' Mirova has been named this year's fixed income manager of the year, as judges praised its strong impact focus and the classification of its funds under the EU's Article 9 classification, under the EU's Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR).

Mirova's four largest fixed income strategies, and each outperformed its respective index last year, gross of fees. They include:

• Mirova Euro Green and Sustainable Corporate Bond Fund, with €469 million assets under management as of 2023 year-end;
• Mirova Euro Green and Sustainable Bond Fund, with €748 million assets under management as of 2023 year-end;
• Mirova Global Green Bond Fund, with €1.2 billion assets under management as of 2023 year-end; and,
• Mirova Euro Short Term Sustainable Bond Fund, with €350 million assets under management as of 2023 year-end.

In its submission, Mirova highlighted the role played by process based on in-depth ESG analysis, flexible credit research and valuation models "to pick the right instruments from the right issuers at the right time".

It said that last year it took a more positive outlook than the rest of the market had feared at the end of 2022, believing productivity gains in North America would boost growth without prompting inflation to resurface to levels seen in 2021 and 2022. It also took a less positive view of Europe, preferring economies dependent on services over more industrials-focused economies, like Germany.

As such, it "built up exposures" to high beta issuers, generally.

"This award recognises the hard work of our team of great managers, analysts and strategists, who consistently strive to ensure that Mirova fixed income funds – all classified as Article 9 under SFDR, outperform their respective indices, in high yield, investment grade credit, euro aggregate, global credit or global green bond, short-term and various other strategies, all with the ultimate goal of benefiting our customer," Bertrand Rocher and Marc Briand, co-heads of fixed income at Mirova, said.

"It also affirms the trust and loyalty shown by our clients, which continually motivates us to deliver excellence."