MutualFundWire.com: Freshly Rebranded, a 10YO Bond Fund Hits 10-Figure Territory
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Friday, July 11, 2025

Freshly Rebranded, a 10YO Bond Fund Hits 10-Figure Territory


The team at a Midwestern insurer's asset management arm is celebrating several milestones for a multisector bond fund whose subadvisor was recently acquired.

Kevin Thomas Jestice
 Nationwide
Head of the Investment Management Group
Yesterday (July 10), Kevin Jestice, president of the investment management group (IMG) at Nationwide [profile], revealed that the Nationwide Strategic Income Fund has recently surpassed $1 billion in AUM. The news comes two weeks after the Nationwide folks rebranded the mutual fund (fka the Nationwide Amundi Strategic Income Fund) and less than four months before what will be the tenth anniversary of the fund's launch.

Columbus, Ohio-based Nationwide Fund Advisors (NFA) continues to serve as the Nationwide Strategic Income Fund's investment advisor. San Antonio, Texas-based Victory Capital Management [profile] now serves as the fund's subadvisor, after officially taking over three months ago (following fund board approval on December 11).

And yet the official subadvisor change is sort of no change at all. The Nationwide Strategic Income Fund's former subadvisor, Boston-based Amundi Asset Management US, Inc., was purchased on April 1 by Victory in a long-awaited deal, and the Victory folks rebranded their new Amundi U.S. boutique by bringing back the old Pioneer Investments brand. Thus, the fund's PM team remains unchanged, though the PMs now are officially part of Victory's Pioneer after hailing previously from Amundi U.S.

That Pioneer PM team for the Nationwide Strategic Income Fund includes:
  • lead portfolio manager Jonathan Duensing, who has PMed the fund since inception and now serves as head of fixed income U.S. at Pioneer;
  • Jeffrey Galloway, senior vice president and senior credit analyst at Pioneer, who has PMed the fund since 2023; and
  • Ken Monaghan, co-director of global high yield at Pioneer and PM of this fund since inception.
    The Nationwide Strategic Income Fund's birthday, as the Nationwide Amundi Strategic Income Fund, was November 2, 2015.* The fund rebranded on June 26, 2025, and it now has $1.1056 billion in AUM**.

    The freshly rebranded Nationwide Strategic Income Fund currently comes in three flavors:
  • A shares (NWXEX), with a maximum up-front load of 225 basis points, an expense ratio of 99bps, and a minimum initial investment requirement of $2,000;
  • Institutional Service Class shares (NWXHX), with no load, an expense ratio of 61bps, and a minimum initial investment requirement of $50,000; and
  • R6 shares (NWXGX), with no load, an expense ratio of 49bps, and a minimum initial investment requirement of $1 million.
    • All three share classes bake in a 16bps fee waiver promised through February 28, 2026.

    Jestice puts the growth and performance of the Nationwide Strategic Income Fund (which has a five-star Morningstar rating and has, according to the Nationwide team, outperformed its peer group by 2 percent annually on average since inception) in the context of the Nationwide IMG team's broader mission "to leverage the specialized knowledge and expertise of subadvisers while holding them to the highest standards."

    "This milestone is a testament to our institutional-level, multi-step approach to investment manager and fund selection," Jestice states. "By prioritizing quality and consistency, we are committed to providing investors with a higher probability of reaching their investment goals."

    The Nationwide Strategic Income Fund is a series of Nationwide Mutual Funds. The fund's other service providers are unchanged. They include:
  • JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. as custodian and securities lending agent;
  • Nationwide Fund Distributors LLC (NFD) as distributor;
  • Nationwide Fund Management LLC (NFM) as dividend disbursing agent and transfer agent;
  • PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as independent accounting firm;
  • Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young, LLP as counsel; and
  • U.S. Bancorp Fund Services, LLC (dba U.S. Bank Global Fund Services) as sub-transfer agent.

    • *The launch of the Nationwide Amundi Strategic Income Fund and another Nationwide fund, in November 2015, marked Amundi's first entrance into the U.S. mutual fund subadvisory business.

    **As of June 30, 2025.


    Printed from: MFWire.com/story.asp?s=70140

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