Deals
Natixis’s H2O Marks Down Bond Assets to Avoid Woodford Fate
- H20 loans dressed as bonds evoke Woodford’s stock move
- Third U.K. fund manager facing scrutiny over investments
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Natixis SA went into crisis-fighting mode to stem a wave of outflows from its H2O Asset Management unit, selling about 300 million euros ($342 million) of its unrated private bonds and marking down the balance to remove incentives for investors to pull even more.
The move cuts the aggregate market value of the bonds, which were issued by companies linked to financier Lars Windhorst, to less than 2% of assets under management, H2O said in a statement on Monday. H2O’s funds, whose assets doubled since 2017 to $37.6 billion before last week’s tumult, will be priced at a discount between 3% and 7%, and the company will remove all entry fees across its funds, it said.