About Us
ECM is a specialist fixed income manager, established in February 1999 to take advantage of opportunities in the fast growing European credit market.
Over the past eight years we have become a major player in the fixed income markets. Apart from investment grade corporate bonds, we also cover asset backed securities, bank capital, leveraged loans, and high yield and European emerging market debt. We currently manage around Eur 12.5 billion of assets on behalf of a diversified institutional client base.
In January 2007, ECM announced a strategic partnership with Evergreen Investments (the asset management division of AA rated Wachovia Corp.), through which Evergreen has acquired a majority interest in ECM, although management and employees have retained 40% of their original individual holdings. ECM has retained its autonomy, brand name and independent investment process. Fitch upgraded ECM to an Asset Manager Rating of M1 (the highest rating available) from AM2 in February 2008. However, on October 2nd 2008, this was downgraded to M2+ (Rating Watch Evolving) following the uncertainty surrounding the future of ECM's parent company, Wachovia Corporation.