News

The Wall Street Journal reports that investors seeking higher yields have pushed fixed-income sales to record highs, especially for riskier debt offering higher payouts. The uptick in inflation has pushed price increases above average junk bond yields, an inversion of the way investors traditionally think of the bond market. Voya Investment Management Chief Investment Officer Matt Toms believes that investors are looking more at each individual issuer rather than categories, saying, “It is now about which companies can manage supply and pricing pressures and less so whether they can survive through the pandemic.”

Ignites spoke with Voya Investment Management CEO Christine Hurtsellers on the impact of the pandemic on Voya’s distribution and sales teams. Hurtsellers said that, as the pandemic has carried on, it has made establishing relationships with clients “harder and harder.” At the same time, Hurtsellers said the new challenges “massively accelerated our digitization.”

Voya Investment Management has named Vincent Costa Co-Chief Investment Officer for Equities effective Jan. 1, according to a statement. Costa “will work closely with Michael Pytosh, who has been CIO of equities since 2017 and head of equities since 2010, the release noted.” Voya spokesman Kristopher Kagel “confirmed by email that Mr. Costa will also retain his current positions as head of the quantitative equity team and portfolio manager in Voya’s large-cap value strategy group.” Voya “also named James Dorment and Kristy Finnegan as co-heads of fundamental research in the equities platform, both newly created positions. Both Mr. Dorment and Ms. Finnegan will keep their portfolio management responsibilities on the value and growth strategies teams, respectively, the release added.”  

FundFire reports a recent Cerulli Associates survey found that distribution teams “are increasingly turning to data analytics to drive faster growth but are running into challenges in pulling the right data together and convincing wholesalers to actually use the tools they put in place.” The survey showed 95% of distribution executives cited “insufficient technology infrastructure” as “very challenging” or “somewhat challenging” to efforts in data analytics. Moreover, 70% of distribution executives “considered sourcing data to be either very or somewhat challenging.” Voya Investment Management Head of Distribution Enablement and Intelligence Jane Conway said many asset management firms make large investments in core platforms “and spend a lot of money on data without a blueprint or a way to integrate that data into an infrastructure that supports the distribution ecosystem.”

American Banker reported that, for its Most Powerful Women program, it has “chosen some specific types of roles that have taken on outsize importance in recent times and, within each category, highlighted a few extraordinary female leaders who stand out.” In the Most Powerful Women in ESG category, Voya Investment Management CEO Christine Hurtsellers is listed among the women who “are on the forefront and effecting change at their companies and beyond in their distinct roles.” American Banker says ESG principles “are quickly becoming part of the mainstream and being applied by businesses across every aspect of their operations.”

FundFire reports, “After being forced to adapt to the rapid changes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, asset managers are embracing a new normal as they adopt hybrid strategies to integrate traditional and digital distribution models.” Industry leaders “reflected on the changing distribution landscape during a panel at the Financial Times’ Future of Asset Management North America conference on Thursday.” Voya Investment Management CEO Christine Hurtsellers said, “What used to take a wholesaler three hours to prepare for ... now takes our wholesalers five minutes.” Hurtsellers added that she “can’t underscore enough how important continuing to invest in data is for the industry.”

In a press release distributed by Business Wire, Voya Financial announced “that it has published its 2020-2021 Impact Report, which provides an overview of Voya’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) activities and performance from Jan. 1, 2020, through June 30, 2021.” Voya Financial Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rodney O. Martin, Jr., said, “Our Impact Report reflects our commitment to making a positive difference in the world around us as it continues to evolve. This includes how our employees rose to the extraordinary challenges of the past 18 months – continually improving how we work together and serve our clients and communities.”

US News & World Report reported this year’s gathering in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, billed as the Federal Reserve Board’s research symposium, “comes as the Federal Reserve is facing crucial decisions about whether and when to pull back on its highly accommodative monetary policy, which has kept interest rates low and helped stabilize the economy and the markets for 17 months.” Most observers expect any interest rate cuts “to begin next year with interest rate hikes not before the end of 2022 or perhaps not even until 2023,” but that “calculation has run into a wall of uncertainty amid the rise in coronavirus infections from the delta variant, which has led many governments, schools and businesses to impose new restrictions such as mask mandates and vaccine requirements.” The Fed “is very conscious of the reality that the markets are pretty much geared to low rates forever,” says Amit Sinha, head of multi asset design at Voya Investment Management. “Anything that allows the Fed to continue their easy stance for longer, they would rather be late to tightening than early.”

In an opinion piece for TheStreet, Voya Investment Management Head of Multi-Asset Design Amit Sinha says alternative investments in a portfolio have become more important than ever, and the market for those products “is only getting bigger.” Long accessible only for “large institutional investors, endowments, and the wealthy,” investments such as hedge funds, private credit, and private equity “have now been democratized to where the average investor can access these products and join what had once been an elite club.” This development is partially the result of “dramatic improvements in investment technology, bringing greater transparency, knowledge and access to various investment products with the potential for additional alpha generation.”

In an opinion piece for the ABA Banking Journal (8/18), Voya Investment Management’s Bank Advisory Group Co-Managers Randy Cameron and David Wood say community banks today “are flush with cash,” but they are having trouble finding growth opportunities while “earning as little as zero to 10 basis points ... when the industry’s cost of funds generally exceeds this return by a fair margin.” For banks searching for growth, the authors “believe an answer lies within the syndicated loan market for secured C&I loans.” Firms like Voya “work directly with the agent banks to consolidate all of the borrowers’ data,” and Voya analysts “re-underwrite the transactions to bank-like standards for their client banks.” Cameron and Wood say the “relative value and efficiencies of this portfolio, combined with liquidity and flexibility that banks simply do not have with a local C&I portfolio, make these products something that community banks should consider.”