Fund Evaluator:

Mercer Opportunistic Fixed Income I Overview

Mercer Opportunistic Fixed Income I (MOFTX) is an actively managed Taxable Bond Multisector Bond fund. Mercer Funds launched the fund in 2023.

The investment seeks to provide long-term total return, which includes capital appreciation and income. Under normal circumstances, the fund will invest at least 80% of its net assets (plus borrowings for investment purposes, if any) in fixed income securities. It may invest in bank loans and loan participations and senior and subordinated debt securities. The fund may invest a significant portion of its assets in any combination of non-investment grade bonds (sometimes called "high yield" or "junk bonds"), bonds issued by issuers in emerging capital markets.

About Mercer Opportunistic Fixed Income I (MOFTX)

There are 15 members of the management team with an average tenure of 1.40 years: Campe Goodman (2025), John Fekete (2025), Seth Brufsky (2025), Antoon de Klerk (2023), Alfred Murata (2025), Grant Webster (2025), Rob Burn (2025), John Sherman (2025), Benjamin Santonelli (2025), Sonali Pier (2025), Ross Slusser (2025), Jason Duko (2025), Samantha Milner (2025), Charles Arduini (2025), Charles Watford (2025). Management tenure is more important for actively managed funds than passive index funds.

The fund has 4 primary benchmarks: Bloomberg US Agg Bond TR USD index with a weighting of 100%, Morningstar LSTA US LL TR USD index with a weighting of 33%, JPM EMBI Global Diversified TR USD index with a weighting of 33% and Bloomberg US Corporate High Yield TR USD index with a weighting of 33%. Mercer Opportunistic Fixed Income I has 2404 securities in its portfolio. The top 10 holdings constitute 19.1% of the fund’s assets. The fund meets the SEC requirement of being classified as a diversified fund. The fund is not considered to have an ESG focus with its investment selection and management.

Mercer Opportunistic Fixed Income I is part of the Fixed Income global asset class and is within the Taxable Bond fund group. Mercer Opportunistic Fixed Income I has 33.6% of its portfolio invested in foreign issues. The overall assets allocated to domestic stock is 0.8%. There is 0.0% allocated to foreign stock, and 0.3% is allocated to preferred stocks. The bond allocation as a percentage of total assets is 94.9% (61.4% domestic bond, 33.6% foreign bond and 1.5% convertible bond). Mercer Opportunistic Fixed Income I has 2.5% of the portfolio in cash.

Assets Under Management

The fund has $665 million in total assets, which is below the $1 billion average for the Multisector Bond category. Normally, lower assets under management translates to higher average expense ratios, and greater total assets are desired. However, for some investment categories, such as small-cap investing, it may be difficult for the manager to fully employ the desired active strategy if assets grow too large or too quickly.

MOFTX Performance and Fees

The expense ratio measures how much of a fund’s assets are used for administrative expenses and operating expenses, including adviser fees and fees for the transfer agent and custodial services. The Mercer Opportunistic Fixed Income I expense ratio is above average compared to funds in the Multisector Bond category. Mercer Opportunistic Fixed Income I has an expense ratio of 0.75%, which is 20% lower than its category average, making the fund expense ratio grade a C. While it is difficult to predict returns, it is known that high annual expense ratios reduce your rate of return, and excessive fees are difficult to overcome. Active management normally comes with higher expense ratios than passive index management. Certain investment categories such as small company and foreign also normally have higher expense ratios. It is best to compare fund expense ratios against the category averages for meaningful assessments.

High portfolio turnover can translate to higher expenses and lower aftertax returns. Mercer Opportunistic Fixed Income I has a portfolio turnover rate of 246%, indicating that holds its assets around 0.0 years. By way of comparison, the average portfolio turnover is 162% for the Multisector Bond category.

Recently, in the month of July 2026, Mercer Opportunistic Fixed Income I returned -0.5%, which earned it a grade of B, as the Multisector Bond category had an average return of -0.7%. The letter grades of A, B, C, D and F are based upon relative rankings within the investment category. A grade of A, for example, would indicate that the return is in the highest 20% for that time period compared to all funds in that category.

Mercer Opportunistic Fixed Income I has a trailing yield of 5.95%, which is above the 5.31% category average. The fund normally distributes its income annually and its capital gains annually.

It’s natural to seek the best-performing investments, but you must consider the relationship between risk and return and the impact of costs and taxes on your realized returns.

Mercer Opportunistic Fixed Income I Grades

Year to date, the fund has returned 1.5%, 0.6 percentage points better than the category, which translates into a grade of B. The fund has returned 5.3% over the past year (grade of A), 5.8% over the past three years (grade of D) and 2.1% per year over the past five years (grade of C) and 3.4% per year over the past 10 years (grade of D).

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