Independent Financial Advisor and Co-Founder of Affari Miei
February 19, 2024
If you are looking for information because you want to invest in mutual investment funds proposed by Italian post and you’ve heard of the new BancoPosta Obbligazionario Italia 4-year fund you are in the right place.
Today we will analyze all of them together characteristicshis costsand we will try to investigate advantages e disadvantages of the instrument, to draw conclusions and understand whether it is an investment that may be suitable for you or not.
Let’s start!
This article talks about:
Poste Italiane: a presentation
Before specifically analyzing the characteristics of the product, I would like to give you an overview of the institution that makes these mutual funds available to investors.
Poste Italiane is one of the most solid and famous institutions in Italy.
The management company that offers the product is BancoPosta Fondi SpA SGR, which belongs to the Poste Italiane group and is precisely the savings company that carries out both the establishment activities and the organization of the funds and the administration of relationships with the participants and the activities connected to the management of the fund’s assets.
Poste Italiane has a network of over 12,700 post offices, 125 thousand employees and 35 million customers. It is an integral part of the economic, social and productive fabric of our country, and for this reason it is also a unique reality in Italy both in terms of size and recognition and trust on the part of customers.
In 2015 it was listed on the Milan Stock Exchange, and is 29.3% owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), 35% by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP), in turn controlled by the MEF , and for the remaining part by institutional and retail investors.
The values underlying its success are primarily customer satisfaction, trust and integration.
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The characteristics of the fund
This is a fund bond which aims to benefit from the current yield of bonds, mainly Italian ones. It is a fund that invests at least 70% of its assets in Italian government bondsin bonds issued by Italian companies and in deposits with Italian banks.
The aim of the fund is to obtain, over the period of time from the placement period until 30 June 2028, i.e. approximately 4 years, a portfolio return that is in line with that expressed on average by corporate and government bond financial instruments of similar duration, investing in euro-denominated securities of Italian issuers.
Investment Policy
The fund invests, as we have seen, in Italian bonds.
I also tell you that if you want to subscribe to this fund you can do so via PICi.e. with a single payment of €500 and subsequent payments of a minimum of €500.
We have seen that the duration of the investment is approximately 4 years (until 30 June 2028): within 18 months following the end of the investment time horizon, the fund will be merged by incorporation into the fund “BancoPosta Primo” or in another fund characterized by an investment policy that is homogeneous or in any case compatible with that pursued by the “BancoPosta Primo” fund.
Benchmark
Given it management style that is adopted, it is not possible to identify a reference parameter that is representative of the fund’s investment policy.
However, an annualized volatility measure of approximately 3.5% can be identified.
The distribution policy
As regards the distribution policy, the fund is a distribution of proceeds: it aims to distribute 3 proceeds annually starting from 2025 (reference period: 1 July – 30 June).
The three proceeds will be variable in relation to the performance of the fund, while starting from 1 July 2027 the fund will be of the type of accumulation of proceeds and therefore will not give rise to any distribution.
Risk profile of BancoPosta Obbligazionario Italia 4 years
The fund is classified in the category 2 on a scale ranging from 1 to 7: we are in low risk, mainly due to the fact that the fund invests mainly in bonds.
The costs of BancoPosta Obbligazionario Italia 4 years
Let’s now analyze the part of the costs that affect the product and that you will have to bear if you decide to subscribe to it.
The costs part is one of the most important, as they weigh on your contract and erode your returns.
The expenses they serve to cover the management costs of the fund, since since it is active management the manager must be remunerated for his intervention in the investments.
Let’s see what the costs are:
Entry costs: 2 euros fixed fees;
Exit costs: equal to 0.5% of the investment;
Management fees: equal to 0.83% of the value of the investment per year;
Transaction costs: amount to 0.15% of the value of the investment per year.
I advise you to read the carefully KID to better understand how costs are distributed and above all how they impact returns.
Historical returns
As the fund does not have data for a full year, there is no data available that could represent and be useful in providing an indication of past performance given that it has only recently been launched.
Tax treatment
On capital income deriving from participation in the fund, a withholding tax of 26% is applied, and it is applied on the amount of proceeds distributed during participation in the fund and on the amount of proceeds included in the difference between the redemption value, liquidation or transfer of the shares and the average cost of subscription or purchase of the shares themselves.
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Is it worth investing in BancoPosta Obbligazionario Italia 4 years?
We have finished our review of the bond fund so we can now try to draw conclusions and understand whether it is a suitable and/or convenient investment.
If you have already had the opportunity to read other contributions of mine about similar products, perhaps you will already know my opinion: I consider mutual investment funds to be instruments with several critical issues, first of all the high management costs.
In fact, I think that the main advantages of this type of product, and I’m not just talking about this in detail, but in general about similar contracts, are aimed more at the management companies, and not so much at the customer.
Personally I prefer to invest in others instruments because I don’t think these are the best from the point of view of convenience and efficiency.
They are tools that have little to offer investors: I believe that there are other better ways to invest, which can be more efficient and which can offer you better returns.
For example, I believe that a passively managed fund like a ETF is much more effective.
I can’t tell you with certainty that it’s not a good idea to invest in this product because I don’t know your personal or financial situation anyway, but I can give you mine. opinions which, as you will have understood, are not entirely positive.
Before saying goodbye I also want to leave you some resources which could be useful for you to start investing:
Happy reading and good investments!
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