Singapore-based DBS Private Bank has seen surging demand for its in-house managed investment products, with assets under management (AUM) having more than doubled to S$10 billion (US$7.43 billion) in 2020 alone.

The bank’s offering includes two recent additions, namely the DBS I.D.E.A Fund and the DBS ESG Focus Note, which collectively raised S$550 million since their rollout in July.

Designed by the Chief Investment Office (CIO) and Product Solutions teams, DBS Private Bank’s growing suite of managed investment products reflects the CIO’s high-conviction strategies and aims to play a larger role in the overall construction of portfolios for clients seeking long-term capital appreciation and income generation.

DBS Private Bank’s first in-house managed investment product was the DBS Global Income Note, a globally diversified fixed-income solution that seeks to provide stable income, which has generated an annualized 7% return since inception in 2019. This was followed by the rollout of the bank’s flagship DBS CIO Barbell Strategy Portfolio, which mirrors the CIO’s "Barbell" investment strategy. This has delivered 33% return since inception, representing 350bp of outperformance over benchmark.

The DBS I.D.E.A. Fund (referring to innovators, disruptors, enablers and adapters) is a global portfolio comprising some 50 stocks, carefully selected from 20 themes that the bank sees as being on the cusp of transformational growth – including the likes of blockchain, big data, artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology, electric/autonomous vehicles, and space commercialization. The fund is rated “A” by MSCI ESG Ratings.

The DBS ESG Focus Note was launched in view of two persisting trends: the ongoing hunt for yield amid a lower for longer environment, and clients’ growing awareness and appreciation of ESG investing as a means to do good and do well. It invests in a highly diversified fixed-income portfolio comprising at least 80 bonds that are issued by global companies with good ESG ratings, and from across a range of industries. The objective is to harness incremental yields from these bonds, and provide quarterly distributions to investors.