BNP Paribas Asset Management has launched a European strategic autonomy bond fund, investing in issuers from the Euro aggregate universe designed to harness the evolving geopolitical landscape and Europe’s growing emphasis on security, resilience, and self-sufficiency.
Following EU commitments of more than €1.8 trillion to support Europe’s autonomous push, the fund will focus on four key investment pillars – Defence, Infrastructure, Resilience and Cybersecurity & Digital.
Strengthening Europe’s strategic sectors has become a priority as the region seeks to reinforce its resilience and reduce external dependencies. This requires targeted investment across defence capabilities, European-made equipment, critical infrastructure — including electricity networks, cables, pipelines and energy systems — as well as crisis response capabilities and technological independence.
Around these pillars, BNPP AM has developed a rigorous selection process designed to identify issuers whose financing needs are directly linked to Europe’s transition towards greater resilience and strategic autonomy. The investment approach combines top-down macroeconomic allocation, used to position the bond portfolio across duration, maturity, sector, country and rating, with in-depth bottom-up issuer analysis to identify companies with the strongest exposure to this structural shift.
Fadi Berbari , Senior Euro Aggregate Portfolio Manager at BNP Paribas Asset Management, said: “Europe needs to focus on its strategic priorities. This new fund offers a unique opportunity for investors to help support the transition to a more secure and resilient Europe through a liquid, actively managed, fixed income solution with a diversified thematic approach, taking advantage of our expert team’s experience in assessing fundamentals and bond selection.
“With strong corporate backing from BNP Paribas Group, we are currently the first asset manager to offer a complete European strategic autonomy proposition spanning both equities and bonds.”
The launch follows the success of the BNP Paribas Europe Strategic Autonomy fund, launched just over a year ago, which has raised €975 million in assets and is one of the largest actively managed funds in the space.
The fund is classified as Article 8 under the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR).
