Capital Group Taps Bloomberg for Transparent Evaluated Pricing

Bloomberg provides third largest mutual fund family with accurate and defensible pricing for municipal bonds

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Apr 18, 2017, 09:00 ET

NEW YORK, April 18, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Bloomberg announced today that Capital Group has selected Bloomberg's Evaluated Pricing Service (BVAL) to benchmark and corroborate end-of-day values of its municipal bond positions.

Capital Group is one of the world's largest and most respected asset managers with more than $1.4 trillion in assets under management. Capital Group selected BVAL for its broad coverage of municipal bonds, access to in-house evaluator teams and the transparency Bloomberg provides into its pricing models through the Bloomberg Terminal.

"Capital Group maintains a disciplined approach to managing our funds that is based on rigorous research and high-conviction investment strategies," said Noelle Aiello, VP in Global Securities Operations at Capital Group. "It is imperative that we have access to best-in-class solutions for valuing municipal bonds and BVAL offers the level of quality and service that we require."

Bloomberg draws on market data from a wealth of sources, including contributed observations, to produce credible, defensible and independent valuations for more than 2.5 million fixed income securities and over-the-counter derivatives. Today, BVAL prices nearly one million municipal bonds daily and simplifies comparisons for thinly traded instruments by reviewing a number of characteristics ranging from issuer, call protection and coupon-size among other factors.

"We have made strategic investments in the quality and coverage of our evaluated pricing because we recognized early on the vital role valuations play in a firm's investment strategy and regulatory compliance process," said Varun Pawar, global head of Bloomberg's evaluated pricing service. "BVAL uses rigorous and transparent pricing models that draw from a wealth of data sources. This helps our customers remain competitive in the market but also confident about meeting regulatory and investor demands."

The key to BVAL's methodology is real-time access to market observations from a wealth of contributed sources. This accumulated mass of market data is the main driver of an innovative and quantitative approach that first corroborates market levels on actively traded bonds and then derives a comparable relative value price for securities that are less liquid. Since prices are derived algorithmically using the most recent market data, BVAL's prices track current market conditions and consistently stand-up to rigid quality tests.

In addition, BVAL is the primary pricing source for the Bloomberg Barclays municipal bond indices, which are widely recognized industry benchmarks.

To learn more about Bloomberg's evaluated pricing service, or BVAL, please visit www.bloomberg.com/professional/product/pricing-data/

About Bloomberg

Bloomberg, the global business and financial information and news leader, gives influential decision makers a critical edge by connecting them to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas. The company's strength – delivering data, news and analytics through innovative technology, quickly and accurately – is at the core of the Bloomberg Professional service. Bloomberg's enterprise solutions build on the company's core strength: leveraging technology to allow customers to access, integrate, distribute and manage data and information across organizations more efficiently and effectively. For more information, visit www.bloomberg.com or request a demo.

About Capital Group

Since 1931, Capital Group, home of the American Funds, has been singularly focused on delivering superior results for long-term investors using high-conviction portfolios, rigorous research and individual accountability. Today, Capital Group manages more than US $1.4 trillion in long-term equity and fixed-income assets for millions of individual and institutional investors around the world.*

The Capital Group companies manage equity assets through three investment groups. These groups make investment and proxy voting decisions independently. Fixed income investment professionals provide fixed income research and investment management across the Capital organization; however, for securities with equity characteristics, they act solely on behalf of one of the three equity investment groups.

*As of December 31, 2016

SOURCE Bloomberg