Man Group has launched its first ETFs listed on NYSE as actively managed credit funds, as it broadens access to its global credit platform and institutional level strategies.
The Man Active High Yield ETF is managed by Mike Scott, head of Global High Yield and Credit Opportunities at Man Group. The team manages more than $8.9bn across all strategies. The ETF will invest at least 80% of its net assets in high yield securities and up to 30% of its net assets specifically in securities rated below B3 by Moody’s or lower than B- by S&P/Fitch.
Scott commented: “High yield credit brings a historically compelling return profile, and demonstrates more resilience than equities during periods of market turbulence. Larger issuers dominate the high yield market, which leads to large concentrations of debt. Our team favours small and medium sized issuers – a neglected area that typically tends to offer attractive investment opportunities. High yield also carries improved credit quality, which we believe makes this an excellent time to enter the space.”
The Man Active Income ETF, the other product launched, is managed by Jonathan Golan, head of Investment Grade and Dynamic Credit at Man Group. The fund seeks to provide current income and capital growth over a medium to long-term period by investing primarily in debt instruments across multiple credit sectors. It takes a bottom-up investment approach, focusing on corporate, government, and securitized debt. It may also hold other investment instruments such as convertible bonds, hybrid securities, and other fixed income and equity linked investments.
Golan commented: “Instead of using benchmarks to guide asset allocation, the fund will seek to use the margin of safety to guide asset allocation and invest in securities that we believe represent opportunities across the corporate and securitized bond markets. The fund will not have a fixed geographical or sectoral focus, but rather navigate through the cycle between markets, sectors, and individual companies which in our view present the best prospects for income and capital growth.”
Mark Bedford, global head of Wealth, Man Group, added: “These funds complement our broader capabilities and offer investors diversified sources of income in the vehicles they want. Credit ETFs are one of the fastest growing segments of the ETF universe, while active ETFs are expected to quadruple in the next five years. We’ve long been in the business of broadening our capabilities and are pleased that our deep institutional knowledge within global credit and alternatives will now be accessible to the average investor in the US wealth marketplace.”
Credit sector growth and maturation
The announcement from Man Group comes amid estimates of the rate of growth in private credit resulting in global AUM at between $3trn to $4.5trn in the 2028-2030 period, depending on which report is benchmarked, eg, from sources such as Moody’s or BlackRock.
Impax Asset Management said in a report published on 19 September 2025, that research points to improved returns from credit when adopting elements of quantitative or systematic approaches.
The research noted: “Funds that employ quantitative screening tools in the investment grade and high yield markets now hold between $90bn and $140bn in assets under management, and are forecast to continue to grow faster than the overall fixed income market.”
Besides growth in the area of systematic credit there are signs that both investors and regulators are pursuing the idea that the sector continues to mature.
In the EU, it is already the case that credit rating agencies are regulated on the basis of lessons learned during the global financial crisis (GFC) in the first decade of the century.
For private credit funds in the UK, the Financial Conduct Authority requires, among other, clear policies and procedures around anti-money laundering, risk management, conflicts of interest and the fund’s valuation process, if it is to obtain authorisation.
Another more recent example lies with the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC), which has issued an interim report warning that the jurisdiction’s private credit sector standards must improve, particularly as such products are rolled out to the retail market. In the past week the regulator issued a so-called stop order against a private credit fund.
Still, Impax expects use of systematic credit strategies to continue, given the gains made possible, noting: “Systematic fixed income strategies use data-driven, relative value approaches to exploit cross-sectional dispersion in credit markets and structural inefficiencies across sectors. As well as being less susceptible to behavioural biases, they can more efficiently scan the breadth of the bond universe to identify relative value opportunities – particularly among less-followed names.”
For more information, read American Century Investments’ report – Systematic Credit: The Next Frontier in Credit Investing
