Active Management in Polish Domestic Treasury Bond Funds

Abstract

Theoretical background: An increase in the interest in passive investing has been one of the most important trends on financial market over the last two decades. However, passive portfolio management is not limited to index funds and passive exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Despite the declared active approach to investing, in practice some active fund managers construct portfolios whose structure is quite similar to the index (usually a fund benchmark). Simultaneously, these funds charge relatively high fees, inadequate to the involvement in the investment process. In order to estimate the scale of this phenomenon, the activity and investment style of actively managed funds are examined.

Purpose of the article: The main aim of the paper is to determine the degree of active approach to portfolio management by domestic Treasury bond funds investing in the Polish currency. Specific objectives include examining the relationship between the level of the fund’s active management and the size of the fund (assets under management) as well as the investment portfolio concentration.

Research methods: In the quantitative study, the portfolio based measure of management activity, commonly used in the subject literature, was applied (adjusted to the bond fund), i.e. bond-level active share ratio. Moreover, to assess the portfolio concentration of the funds from the research sample, two measures were calculated: concentration ratio (CR5) and Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI).

Main findings: The results of the study have proved that a majority of the investigated domestic Treasury bond funds manage their portfolios in an active manner. Additionally, the research has shown that the funds managing larger assets, with a low degree of portfolio concentration, are characterized by relatively lower values of the active share ratio, i.e. their portfolios are relatively passively managed.