MSLEX — Senior Loan Portfolio

MSLEX Fund Overview

MSLEX — Senior Loan Portfolio is a US mutual fund managed by Morgan Stanley Institutional Fund Trust, categorised as Global (incl. US) Blend / Core Equity. ABC INVEST provides holdings, performance, costs, cashflows, risk data, prospectus documents and SEC filings, sourced from SEC filings.

• Type: US mutual fund
• Manager: Morgan Stanley Institutional Fund Trust
• Category: Global (incl. US) Blend / Core Equity
• Assets under management: $52.34M
• 1-year return: 9.8%
• Ticker: MSLEX
• SEC CIK: 0000741375
• SEC series ID: S000067372
• Share class ID: C000216642

MSLEX Investment Objective and Strategy

Senior Loan Portfolio describes its objective and strategy as follows, from its latest prospectus filed with the SEC by Morgan Stanley Institutional Fund Trust.

Investment objective

The Senior Loan Portfolio (the Fund) seeks a high level of current income.

Principal investment strategy

Under normal circumstances, the Fund will invest at least 80% of its net assets, plus the amount of any borrowings for investment purposes, in income-producing loans that hold a senior position in the capital structure of U.S. and foreign corporations (sometimes referred to as Senior Loans) and derivatives and other senior debt instruments that effectively enable the Fund to achieve economic exposure similar to Senior Loans. The Fund intends to only purchase other senior debt instruments if such instruments are pari passu (i.e., on equal legal footing relative to other creditors) with other Senior Loans in the capital structure of a borrower with respect to collateral. These instruments will carry similar risks to Senior Loans. Senior Loans are typically secured with specific collateral that is senior to subordinated debtholders and equity holders of the borrower.

Senior Loans normally pay interest at rates that float above, or are adjusted periodically based on, a benchmark that reflects current interest rates. Senior Loans are usually of below investment grade quality and have below investment grade credit ratings, which ratings are associated with securities having high risk, speculative characteristics (sometimes referred to as high yield securities or junk). High yield securities are fixed-income securities rated by one or more rating agencies below Baa3 by Moodys Investors Service, Inc. (Moodys), below BBB- by S&P Global Ratings Group, a division of S&P Global Inc. (S&P), below BBB- by Fitch Ratings, Inc. (Fitch) or, if unrated, considered by the Adviser to be of equivalent quality. Senior Loans are loans made to borrowers that may be corporations, partnerships or other entities.

These borrowers operate in a variety of industries and geographic regions, although most Senior Loans are made to borrowers that are organized or located in the U.S. Senior Loans generally are negotiated between a borrower and several financial institution lenders represented by one or more lenders acting as agent of all the lenders. The agent is responsible for negotiating the loan agreement that establishes the terms and conditions of the Senior Loan and the rights of the borrower and the lenders. The Fund may purchase assignments of portions of Senior Loans from third parties and may invest in participations in Senior Loans. Senior Loans also may take the form of debt obligations of borrowers issued directly to investors in the form of debt securities (i.e., Senior Notes). The Senior Loans in which the Fund invests may have varying degrees of restrictive covenants for lenders, including covenant lite loans.

The purchaser of an assignment typically succeeds to all the rights and obligations under the loan agreement of the assigning lender and becomes a lender under the loan agreement. Assignments may, however, be arranged through private negotiations, and the rights and obligations acquired by the purchaser of an assignment may differ from, and be more limited than, those held by the assigning lender. When the Fund purchases a participation in a Senior Loan, the Fund will usually have a contractual relationship only with the lender selling the participation and not with the borrower. The Fund may have the right to receive payments of principal, interest and any fees to which it is entitled only from the lender selling the participation and only upon receipt by the lender of such payments from the borrower.

As a result, the Fund may assume the credit risk of both the borrower and the lender selling the participation. In the event of insolvency of the lender selling a participation, the Fund may be treated as a general creditor of the lender. The Fund may also invest in other types of derivatives, securities and cash equivalent instruments denominated in multiple currencies, as well as repurchase agreements and reverse repurchase agreements. The Fund may hold equity securities received as part of a reorganization or restructuring. The Advisers investment process starts with top-down macroeconomic analysis to assess the optimal positioning of the Fund. The Adviser then applies a combination of quantitative and qualitative filters to identify securities that meet the Funds investment criteria in terms of competitive position, franchise value and management quality.

The Advisers credit analysis focuses on financial risk, business risk, management ability and intentions. Valuation analysis is used to narrow the screened investment universe to a pool of investment candidates, which are then assessed in order to determine relative valuation. Finally, the Funds portfolio is constructed with sector allocation driven primarily from bottom-up security selection. Integral to the Funds portfolio construction process is the measurement and monitoring of market risk, duration and volatility and credit risk through the use of proprietary risk measures and models. The Funds investment process incorporates information about environmental, social and governance issues (also referred to as ESG) via an integrated approach within the investment teams fundamental investment analysis framework.

The Funds Adviser may engage with management of certain issuers regarding corporate governance practices as well as what the Adviser deems to be materially important environmental and/or social issues facing a company. The Fund has no requirements as to the range of maturities of the debt instruments it can buy or as to the market capitalization of the issuers of those instruments. The Fund may borrow money for investment purposes or to meet redemption requests. The Fund may, but it is not required to, use derivative instruments for a variety of purposes, including hedging, risk management, portfolio management or to earn income. The Funds use of derivatives may involve the purchase and sale of derivative instruments such as futures, swaps and other related instruments and techniques. The Fund may utilize foreign currency forward exchange contracts, which are also derivatives, in connection with its investments in foreign securities.

Derivative instruments used by the Fund will be counted towards the Funds 80% policy discussed above to the extent they have economic characteristics similar to the securities included within that policy.

MSLEX Performance

Total returns for MSLEX (as of 2026-10-01), from SEC filings.

MSLEX Risk Information

Risk metrics for MSLEX, derived from monthly returns in SEC filings.

• 1-year volatility (annualised): 2.6%

MSLEX Costs and Fees

MSLEX costs about $75 per $10,000 invested per year in fund expenses.

• Net expense ratio: 0.75%
• Gross expense ratio: 22.19%
• Portfolio turnover: 27%
• Brokerage commissions: 0.00 bps of average net assets (SEC N-CEN)

MSLEX Cashflows

Over the 12 months to 2021-06, Senior Loan Portfolio had net inflows of $2.15M, from monthly SEC N-PORT filings.

MSLEX Debt Constituents

No individual debt constituents are reported in Senior Loan Portfolio's latest SEC N-PORT filing.

MSLEX Prospectus and SEC Filings

Official Senior Loan Portfolio filings on SEC EDGAR — prospectus, portfolio holdings and annual reports.

• Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2021-01-29
• Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2020-02-07
• Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2019-12-30
• Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2021-08-25
• Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2021-05-27
• Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2021-02-25
• Annual census (N-CEN) — filed 2020-12-11

Related Funds

Other Global (incl. US) Blend / Core Equity funds tracked on ABC INVEST:

• Strategic Advisers Fidelity International Fund (FUSIX)
• Strategic Advisers International Fund (FILFX)
• First American Multi-Manager International Equity Fund (FAIEX)
• Symmetry Panoramic International Equity Fund (SPILX)
• FPA Paramount Fund, Inc. (FPRAX)

Data Sources

ABC INVEST compiles this page from public filings made to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) through EDGAR: portfolio holdings and monthly cashflows from Form N-PORT, expenses and returns from fund prospectuses (Form 485BPOS) and the SEC DERA Risk/Return Summary data sets, annual data from Form N-CEN, and shareholder reports from Form N-CSR.