Investment firm LOM has notched up a five-star rating for one of its funds.

International investment analysts Morningstar gave the company’s Stable Income Fund its top rating in its latest round of rankings.

Stable Income Fund manager Bryan Dooley, who is also a columnist for The Royal Gazette, said: “We are happy to have shown strong initial performance on a product that fits the needs of the local market and many of our international clientele.

“Our original thesis in developing the Stable Income Fund was that interest rates would remain low in the face of sluggish global growth, fiscal deleveraging and the inevitable ageing of the world’s largest economies.

“Our top-down investment philosophy, coupled with a quantitatively based security selection process, has provided above market returns and helped many of our clients meet their objectives for both income and growth.”

LOM said the fund returned an average of 8.69 percent a year since it was founded three years ago and had exceeded its stated benchmark return by more than 14 percent.

For the year-to-date, the fund has risen by more than nine percent net of fees — ahead of the Standard & Poors preferred stock index (7.59 percent) the DJ dividend select index (6.76 percent) and the Standard & Poors 500 (7.13 percent) and its benchmark figure of 7.35 percent.

The Stable Income Fund now has assets of around $34 million and it invests in high-dividend securities and allocates capital on a strategic basis between asset classes, regions and industrial sectors.

The fund also pays a monthly dividend of 3.1 percent a year — which it has maintained despite lower interest rates — and investors can either take the cash or reinvest into the fund.

The Stable Income Fund joins LOM’s Fixed Income Fund in the five-star category.

Mr Dooley said: “Going forward, we continue to see the ageing of the developed world’s population as one of the more steady and predictable events unfolding in this millennium.

“Older citizens typically crave higher and relatively safe sources of income. We see this as an ongoing trend providing a consistent bid on income-earning assets.

“Our job is to stay ahead of the curve and continue to deliver results.”