OREANDA-NEWS. Fitch Ratings has upgraded CPR Croissance Reactive's Fund Quality Rating to 'Excellent' from 'Strong'. The fund is a flexible multi-asset global fund, managed by CPR Asset Management (CPR AM), a wholly owned subsidiary of Amundi Asset Management.

KEY RATING DRIVERS
The upgrade reflects the solid growth of CPR AM's multi-asset franchise (+50% in 2014 for the Croissance fund range), which provide a solid base for the fund's platform. The upgrade also recognises the quality of the disciplined investment process implemented by a stable, dedicated team, which again demonstrated in 2014 its ability to consistently outperform peers over the long term. The fund ranks first quintile over one, three, five years and since inception in the "Mixed Asset/ EUR Balanced Global" Lipper category.

Fund Presentation
Launched in 1997, CPR Croissance Reactive is a French-domiciled Fonds Commun de Placement with EUR582m of assets under management (AUM) as of end-December 2014. The fund aims to outperform a composite benchmark of 50% MSCI World Euro and 50% JPM GBI World Hedged with a 15% maximum volatility. Equity exposure can vary between 20% and 80%. The fund is mainly invested in Exchange Traded Funds.

Investment Process
The investment process is well defined and executed, based on a balanced model-driven and discretionary approach. The asset allocation is model-driven, with a tactical judgmental overlay.

The proprietary multi-scenario model has been in place since 1998. It uses discretionary scenario-based asset performance forecasts agreed at committees and selected correlations matrices as inputs. The model's output is a portfolio, optimised for given risk budget and constraints.

Resources
The fund benefits from solid resources. The fund's core portfolio management team of five has average experience of 15 years. The quantitative research team has seven analysts, including one fully dedicated to the asset allocation model and the head of the team who originally developed the model. In Fitch's view, the model-driven process and consensual decision making process results in limited key person dependency.

Other support functions include a team of four CPR AM investment risk managers and Amundi shared resources for operations and trading. The fund also benefits from Amundi's IT platform.

Track Record
The fund consistently outperform its benchmark and peers (first quintile performance over one, three, five years and since inception in the "Mixed Asset/ EUR Balanced Global" Lipper category). The fund tends to outperform in bear and trendless markets, but can also capture a significant portion of market upside in rapid trend reversals, due to its reactive profile.

Asset Manager
Created in 1989, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Amundi AM (EUR844bn AUM as at December 2014), CPR AM focuses on institutional investor solutions. It has EUR28bn AUM, including 21% in multi-assets as at December 2014. CPR draws on Amundi's resources for trading, reporting, performance calculations, operations and technology.

RATING SENSITIVITIES
The rating may be sensitive to material changes in the investment or operational processes, or resources dedicated to the fund. A material adverse deviation from Fitch's guidelines for any key rating driver could result in a downgrade. For example, this may be manifested in significant structural deterioration in the fund's performance resulting from a model error or inadequacy, as measured by drawdown or underperformance relative to benchmark and peers. Fitch sees limited key person risk for this fund.

Fitch's Fund Quality Ratings combine Fitch's experience in qualitative fund analysis with rankings and performance data from Lipper, a Thomson Reuters company. Fitch's Fund Quality Ratings offer an independent, forward-looking assessment of a fund's key performance and risk attributes and consistency of longer-term returns, relative to peer group or benchmarks. The ratings focus on the fund manager's investment process, key fund performance drivers, risk management, and the quality of the fund's operational infrastructure.

For more information, see www.fundmanagement.fitchratings.com

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