Thrivent Income Fund, ticker symbol LBIIX, is actually one of the first and oldest mutual funds at Thrivent Asset Management. Its original share class was launched in 1972. While that's a bit before my time, it’s currently co-managed by myself since 2017, and Courtney Swensen, who joined me on the fund in 2023. The fund’s primary objectives are to seek a high level of income while preserving principal, and secondarily, to obtain long-term growth of capital in order to maintain our investor’s purchasing power.

The fund invests primarily in investment grade corporate bonds, but also in U.S. government bonds, mortgage-backed securities, other securitized debt, high yield bonds and emerging market debt.

Thrivent Income Fund is a good fit for investors with a medium to long term investment horizon, and are seeking a higher level of income than that provided by higher quality government bond funds or shorter duration funds.

Within our corporate bond peer group, we’ve got a little bit more of a flexible or tactical approach to investing than some of our peers. We’re able to move in and out of different fixed income asset classes based on where we see the most value. At any point, we may have varying levels of exposure to U.S. Treasuries, securitized debt, high yield debt, emerging market debt or even preferreds.

So, what may set us apart is this ability to tactically allocate to these different asset classes. And we have great teams right here at Thrivent Asset Management that are experts in all of these areas. And we’re all here on the same floor. So, it’s easy to leverage their expertise every single day.

One of Thrivent Income Fund’s primary goals is to outperform through superior credit selection. We view this as our core competency, and we have a long history of adding value to our investors in this manner.

The foundation of our investment philosophy is a team-oriented, disciplined, fundamental credit research process. Our process starts with a top-down assessment of our current macroeconomic views and where we currently are in the credit cycle. This macro strategy then drives the Fund’s risk profile, sector allocations and duration targets. We have ongoing discussions with the experts in Thrivent’s various fixed income teams to determine where we see the most value and how we want to be positioned within those sectors.

Our top-down views then make the bottoms up fundamental research process, which is supported by teams of very experienced research analysts. These analysts are tasked with identifying securities with the strongest risk/reward profiles.

Our portfolio teams also seek to add value through active management while monitoring risk to build well-diversified portfolios.

When choosing securities to include in Thrivent Income Fund, Courtney and I work very closely with our analyst teams to fully understand the companies we decide to invest in. We look at the company’s growth trajectory, what threats there may be to that growth, look at their margins and how all of this impacts a company’s free cash flow, which ultimately determines how likely they are to repay their debt obligations. Within the industry sector, we also want to consider the company’s position within that sector and the viability of their business model within the sector. There are almost always relative winners and losers within a sector, and we try very hard to avoid the losers.

Finally, within the credit market, we're going to have some strong sectors and weak sectors. Depending on our outlook, it’s then our decision on whether we want to go for potential outsized returns and a weaker sector or focus on stronger sectors and get closer to benchmark-like returns.

We view this as our core competency. And we have a long history of adding value to our investors in this manner.