A little over a year ago, the Corum L’Epargne group surprised by announcing the launch of Corum EuroLife, a new fund in euros without payment commissions with the ambition of surpassing Livret A. A few months later, this objective was met. achieved with an annualized return net of management fees of 4.45% (i.e. 3.68% after social security contributions).
“Starting from a blank page, we had complete freedom to create a portfolio that took advantage of the high interest rate environment”explains Amandine Lezy, CEO of Corum Life. What will happen tomorrow? It now weighs 30 million euros, including “Invested 60% in “investment grade” bonds, issued by governments and the strongest large companies, our fund in euros should offer in 2024 a return even higher than the sector average, without necessarily equaling the return of his first year »Mrs. Lezy anticipates.
In fact, monetary easing could gradually decrease the attractiveness of these vehicles that focus their investment strategy on “corporate” bond securities (private debt).
Low reserves
“We hope to maintain our profitability in 2024, but for 2025 and 2026 its level will depend on the impact on long rates of the foreseeable fall in short rates”confirms Jérôme de Villèle, CEO of Ampli Mutuelle, the first market player to position itself in the niche of euro fund renewal with the launch, in February 2023, of the unique Ampli Assurance-Vie support (3.75 % of the annual rate). performance in 2023).
“It is difficult to project too much into the future”also admits Gilles Belloir, general director of Placement-direct.fr. This broker has been promoting since November 2023, in partnership with Swiss Life Assurance and Patrimoine, the Euro + support (yield of 4.10% last year), whose assets included, at the end of June, 97.6% of bonds with average rating BBB-, generating a coupon of 4.6% (compared to 5.1% at the end of December 2023).
By having very low provisions for profit sharing, these funds could end up suffering from a lack of financial reserves to remain competitive on a sustainable basis. “Our fund, compared to the liners on the market, looks like a small sailboat, it is more sensitive to changes in interest rates but also less penalized by the weight of low-yield bonds that weigh on its holdings”However, remember Mme Lezy.
