OREANDA-NEWS. October 13, 2015. Fitch Ratings has assigned three short-term money market funds managed by UBS Global Asset Management 'AAAmmf' ratings, as follows:

UBS (IRL) Select Money Market Fund - EUR: assigned 'AAAmmf'
UBS (IRL) Select Money Market Fund - USD: assigned 'AAAmmf'
UBS (IRL) Select Money Market Fund - GBP: assigned 'AAAmmf'

The funds are sub-funds of the Irish-domiciled umbrella fund, UBS (Irl) Select Money Market Fund.

KEY RATING DRIVERS
The main drivers of the ratings are:
-- The funds' overall credit quality and diversification
-- Low exposure to interest rate and spread risks
-- Holdings of daily and weekly liquid assets consistent with shareholder profile and concentration
-- Maturity profile consistent with Fitch's 'AAAmmf' rating criteria
-- The capabilities and resources of UBS Global Asset Management

PORTFOLIO CREDIT QUALITY/DIVERSIFICATION
The funds seek to maintain diversified, high credit quality portfolios consistent with Fitch's criteria for 'AAAmmf' rated MMFs, by investing in highly rated securities with limited exposure to individual issuers.

As at early September 2015, the funds' Portfolio Credit Factors (PCF) were in line with Fitch's 'AAAmmf' rating criteria of 1.50 or less. The PCF is a risk-weighted measure of a fund's portfolio assets that accounts for the credit quality and maturity profile of a fund's portfolio securities.

MATURITY PROFILE
The funds seek to limit interest rate and spread risk by maintaining their weighted average maturity (WAM) and weighted average life (WAL) below 60 days and 120 days, respectively. As at end-September, the funds' WAM and WAL were below 50 days.

LIQUIDITY PROFILE
The funds seek to maintain sufficient levels of daily and weekly liquidity to meet investors' flows. Specifically, they invest at least 10% of their total assets in securities offering daily liquidity, and at least 25% in securities maturing within seven days or other qualifying liquid assets.

FUND OBJECTIVE
The funds seek to earn a current income in line with prevailing money market rates in their base currency, while aiming to preserve capital consistent with these rates' and to maintain a high degree of liquidity.

At end-September 2015, the euro, US dollar and sterling funds' assets under management were EUR439m, USD669m and GBP135m, respectively.

INVESTMENT ADVISOR
UBS Global Asset Management is a large-scale asset manager with well-diversified businesses across regions, capabilities and distribution channels. It is the asset management arm of UBS AG (affirmed at A/Stable/F1 on 15 June 2015). UBS Global Asset Management had EUR624bn of assets under management at end 2Q15, of which approximately 9% were money market assets.

Fitch views UBS Global Asset Management and UBS AG's investment advisory capabilities, financial and resource commitments, operational controls, corporate governance and compliance procedures as consistent with the 'AAAmmf' rating assigned to the funds.

RATING SENSITIVITIES
The ratings may be sensitive to material changes in the credit quality, market risk, and/or liquidity profiles of the funds. Temporary deviations from Fitch's criteria need not automatically result in rating changes, provided the fund manager is able to address them with credible near-term remedial actions. However, material adverse and continued deviations from Fitch's guidelines for any key rating driver may lead to the rating being placed on Rating Watch Negative (RWN) or downgraded.

SURVEILLANCE
Fitch will receive weekly fund holdings information and other pertinent fund data from the funds' administrator - State Street Fund Services (Ireland) Limited - to conduct surveillance against ratings guidelines and to maintain the MMF ratings.