UK- Threadneedle Investments is adding to its corporate bond team with three new hires. Trudie Pearce, Paul Kirtley and Victoria Port will join the 20-strong fixed income division over the next three months and report to head of fixed interest Robert Stirling.

Pearce joins Threadneedle as a portfolio manager from AXA Investment Managers where she was a senior credit analyst in its fixed income investment research team responsible for providing pan European credit and value recommendations in selected industrial sectors.

Pearce has over 11 years’ experience in fixed interest and has worked as head of credit research at M&G. She will join Ted Bacon in the investment grade portfolio management team on both retail funds and institutional mandates.

Kirtley come from Friends Ivory & Sime where he worked as a credit analyst for the last five years. Port has also been a credit analyst for the last five years although at Fidelity Investments where she was responsible for bond and money fund portfolios.

Both join Andrew Crawford’s team covering credit analysis in investment grade debt. Port will focus on the financial sector and Paul Kirtley on industrials.

Said Stirling: “the fixed interest team has grown steadily over the last few years and we now have complete coverage not only of the global
government bond markets, but also of both investment grade and high yield corporate debt and of the emerging markets.

“Demand and supply have been increasing together. In the last few years the corporate bond market has been growing rapidly through new issuance not only in the UK but also across Europe. So we have many more securities which require research and much more money to manage. This is why we continue to recruit managers for our team"