Ivy starts global strategic income fund

NEW YORK, April 7 (Reuters) - Ivy Funds on Monday launched a global bond fund which will be able to invest in any bond sector, country, rating category, maturity or currency and seek to profit from opportunities that may be better outside of the United States.

The new fund will follow the same strategy as the Waddell & Reed Advisors Global Bond Fund. Ivy Funds are distributed through third parties such as brokers and advisers while Advisor Funds are distributed through an in-house sales force.

Both Ivy and Waddell & Reed Advisors are part of Overland Park, Kansas-based Waddell & Reed Financial Inc (WDR.N: Quote, Profile, Research).

The new fund will be co-managed by Dan Vrabac, who also is co-manager of the Ivy Asset Strategy Fund, and by Mark Beischel, who manages the Advisors Global Bond Fund.

"Income is our primary mandate, second is capital appreciation to support the income, and third is to protect capital," Beischel said in an interview.

The fund could potentially invest as much as 20 percent of its assets in stocks.

Beischel said that investments in equity will be "opportunistic" and would typically occur when fund managers find a company which has a stock dividend that is higher than the yield on the debt, or when the debt is illiquid.

The fund will be invested around the key themes of a weakening dollar, rising values of some foreign currencies, U.S. and global inflation, and global infrastructure build-out.

"The real GDP trend in the U.S. is moving to a lower level and other international economies are going to grow faster, offering better return potential," Beischel said.