Sterling Capital Fixed Income Capabilities
While fixed income generally serves a straightforward role in an investment portfolio, seeks to provide income and risk protection, managing fixed income is anything but simple.
Because investors typically tolerate less risk in fixed income allocations, and losses can take years to recover, professional management is essential. Most fixed income securities trade “over the counter” in less liquid markets, making expertise in trading and risk management critical. Investors need portfolio managers who understand the full spectrum of risks in fixed income and have the skill to navigate this less-liquid asset class.
At Sterling Capital, our experienced fixed income team has managed assets for institutional and retail clients for decades. In today’s environment, where the search for incremental yield often overshadows risk management, our process is rooted in striking a balance between the two.
Our approach is differentiated by a deeply integrated, team-based process that combines top-down macroeconomic analysis with bottom-up security selection to capture prevailing themes and opportunities.
Who We Are
Sterling Capital leverages the collective expertise of our team across every mandate. This includes insights into macroeconomic trends as well as sector-specific and security-level analysis. The result: fixed income strategies that seek to perform across market cycles, delivering an attractive balance of risk management, income, and long-term capital appreciation.
Philosophy and Process
Sterling Capital seeks to provide long-term, consistent investment performance and exceptional client service. We strive to achieve these through our process for managing risk and focusing on developing strong client relationships.
Our Fixed Income team aims to deliver consistent, superior risk-adjusted performance over time through a multi-faceted approach to investing. Based on our team's forecast for the broader economy and specific market sectors, we utilize a variety of strategic and tactical levers that allow us to construct portfolios for various market environments.
Due to the asymmetric risk and return profile of bonds, we believe in the importance of quantifying risk prior to assessing the potential return of any investment. We analyze risk on both a stand-alone basis and within the portfolio context and firmly believe that when it comes to risk, “if you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it.”
Philosophy
- Independent, fundamental research is the foundation of our investment process.
- We strive to deliver a predictable and understandable portfolio that produces a competitive rate of return
and consistent income. - Most individual investors purchase bonds for income, capital preservation, and diversification benefits; not
for a short-term trade. - Many sectors of the bond market offer opportunities for selective investors.
Fixed Income
Insights
05.19.2026 • Nathan Rhees
Employee Spotlight Q&A - Nathan Rhees
Sterling Capital is pleased to share this closer look at Nathan Rhees, Executive Director. Nate joined Sterling Capital Management (SCM) in 2025 and has industry experience since 2000. He is a Client Portfolio Manager focusing on SCM’s Fixed Income franchise. Prior to joining SCM, he was a principal and client portfolio manager at Alta Capital Management. He also served as a Vice President with Goldman Sachs in its investment management operation where he managed multiple departments including control and risk management, collateral-based lending, trade execution, and mutual fund operations. Nate graduated with a bachelor’s degree in finance and economics from Utah State University.
05.11.2026 • Charles Wittmann, CFA®
- One of the beauties of dividend growth investing is that companies with a history of not only sharing their earnings through dividend payments to their shareholders, but increasing those dividends provides valuable insight into their priorities and ability to pay amounts that can grow over time. - But despite higher corporate earnings, the percentage shared with their shareholders has been falling over the past several years. - If there is value in scarcity with dividend growth scarce, companies that not only pay dividends, but growth them faster than the market appear to have a valuable quality.
04.29.2026
The Sterling Capital VAULT: AI Datacenter Risk
The Fixed Income team's insight on AI and related datacenter buildout.
04.13.2026 • Charles Wittmann, CFA®
The Lead - Revisionist History
- This month Empirical Research provided additional data around the uniquely strong period for the performance of earnings revisions that couple with their observation that recent price momentum has been the strongest in seven decades. - The 2020’s have seen the strongest performance for earnings revisions since the 1980’s. - Our observation is that the uniquely strong performance of earnings revisions has been reflected in higher valuations for these securities with attractive valuations in more stable and consistent earnings growers.
03.11.2026 • Charles Wittmann, CFA®
The Lead - Signposts for Quality Improvement
- This month we look back in history for signs when quality stocks began to experience relative performance improvement trends. - We identify two themes and provide a perspective on the current environment. - Finally, we assess current valuations of higher quality stocks versus lower quality across a variety of metrics.
02.11.2026 • Charles Wittmann, CFA®
The Lead - Stability in a Dynamic Market
This month we examine another determinant of “quality” in stocks, stability. - We provide perspective of this characteristic to understand its performance in this dynamic market. - We find stocks with low volatility and high earnings stability were challenged last year and particularly in 4Q25, explaining performance of strategies focused on quality. - Finally, we describe why measurements of quality incorporated stability into their assessment as a key investment principle.
