NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Board of Trustees (“the Board”) of Voya Global Advantage and Premium Opportunity Fund (the “Fund”) (NYSE: IGA) has approved changes to the Fund’s sub-advisory relationship. In connection with these approvals, the investment strategies and portfolio managers of the Fund will change. Each of the foregoing changes will be effective on or about May 6, 2019.
Sub-Advisory Relationship
The Fund’s Board has appointed Voya Investment Management Co. LLC (“Voya IM” or “Sub-Adviser”) to serve as the sole sub‐adviser to the Fund beginning on May 6, 2019, following the termination of the current sub‐advisory agreement between Voya Investments, LLC (the “Adviser”) and NNIP Advisors B.V. Voya IM currently serves as a consultant to the Adviser, although it does not manage any of the Fund’s assets.
Investment Strategies
The Fund will maintain its current investment objective of total return through a combination of current income, capital gains, and capital appreciation. The Fund will continue to pursue an option overlay strategy in the same manner as the current strategy. Upon the implementation of the changes, Voya IM will employ a dividend focused quantitative strategy in selecting equity investments for the Fund. A description of the revised portions of the Fund’s equity investment strategies are included below:
The Fund seeks to achieve its investment objective by investing at least 80% of its managed assets in a portfolio of common stocks of companies located in a number of different countries throughout the world, including the United States; and utilizing an integrated derivatives strategy.
Under normal market conditions, the Fund will invest at least 80% of its managed assets in a diversified portfolio of common stocks across a broad range of countries, industries and market sectors. Equity securities held by the Fund may be denominated in both U.S. dollars and non-U.S. currencies. The Fund may invest up to 20% of its managed assets in securities issued by companies located in emerging markets when the Sub-Adviser believes they present attractive investment opportunities.
The Fund seeks to invest in a portfolio of equity securities included in the MSCI World IndexSM (the “Index”) and will select securities based upon quantitative analysis. The Sub-Adviser uses an internally developed quantitative computer model to create a target universe of global securities with above average dividend yields compared to the Index, which the Sub-Adviser believes exhibit stable dividend yields within each geographic region and industry sector. The model also seeks to exclude from the target universe securities issued by companies that the Sub-Adviser believes exhibit characteristics that indicate that they are at risk of reducing or eliminating the dividends paid on their securities. Once the Sub-Adviser creates this target universe, the Sub-Adviser seeks to identify the most attractive securities within various geographic regions and sectors by ranking each security relative to other securities within its region or sector, as applicable, using proprietary fundamental sector-specific models. The Sub-Adviser then uses optimization techniques to seek to achieve the portfolio’s target dividend yield, manage target beta, determine active weights, and neutralize region and sector exposures in order to create a portfolio that the Sub-Adviser believes will provide the potential for maximum total return consistent with maintaining lower volatility than the Index. Under certain market conditions, the Fund will likely earn a lower level of total return than it would in the absence of its strategy of maintaining a relatively lower level of volatility.
For a period after May 6th until on or about May 20th, Voya IM will work to transition the Fund’s portfolio in accordance with the investment strategy described herein. During this time, the Fund may deviate from its stated investment objectives and strategies, and the Fund’s limitations on permissible investments and investment restrictions may not apply. Transition of the Fund’s investments may result in the realization of taxable capital gains and may have an adverse effect on the Fund’s performance during the period of the transition. In addition, these transactions will also result in transactional costs, which will be borne by the Adviser.
Portfolio Management
Effective with the implementation of the changes discussed herein, Paul Zemsky CFA, Vincent Costa, CFA, Peg DiOrio, CFA and Steve Wetter, of Voya IM, will become the Fund’s portfolio managers, responsible for the day to day management of the Fund. Paul Zemsky serves as Portfolio Manager, and Chief Investment Officer of Voya IM’s Multi-Asset Strategies. Mr. Zemsky joined Voya IM in 2005 as head of derivative strategies. Vinnie Costa serves as Head of the global equities team and as portfolio manager for the U.S. and Global active quantitative strategies and the U.S. large cap value portfolios. Mr. Costa joined Voya IM in April 2006 as head of portfolio management for quantitative equity. Peg DiOrio and Steve Wetter serve as portfolio managers on the quantitative equity team and both joined the firm in 2012.
About Voya Investment Management
A leading, active asset management firm, Voya Investment Management manages, as of September 30, 2018, more than $210 billion for affiliated and external institutions as well as individual investors. With 40 years of history in asset management, Voya Investment Management has the experience and resources to provide clients with investment solutions with an emphasis on equities, fixed income, and multi-asset strategies and solutions. Voya Investment Management was named in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 as a “Best Places to Work” by Pensions and Investments magazine. For more information, visit voyainvestments.com. Follow Voya Investment Management on Twitter @VoyaInvestments.
