Standish Mellon Asset Management Company will begin offering two products that would give clients access to securities related to the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), the BNY Mellon subsidiary has announced.
Two separate products will be offered. One will target new issues of consumer ABS and CMBS. The other will be an expanded TALF strategy that will include "legacy" assets, such as non-agency CMBS and consumer ABS.
Standish felt the need to launch the strategies due to increasing interest from its clients, the firm said in a statement.
And demand for TALF products from pension funds does appear to picking up.Recently, the Weymouth Retirement System issued an RFP for a fixed-income manager to potentially oversee $2 million to $10 million in a TALF strategy.
The Town of Plymouth Retirement System launched a similar search last month.
Mike Dunn, spokesman for Standish said Tom Graf, managing director of structured products, and David Horsfall, deputy CIO for active fixed-income at the firm, will run the two investment strategies.
"We view the TALF initiative as having the potential to be the most successful of the government programs aimed at resuscitating financial markets," said Graf, in the statement. "It is among the least expensive programs, has already established strong momentum, and continues to have growing participation. We stand ready to structure strategies to meet various client needs as they seek to invest in this program."
The firm will begin investing client assets by early July, it said.
